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November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Testing at various tracks this week has shown up some interesting things and also helped to further consolidate the shape of the grids for 2012. In Moto3, Maverick Vinales had his first hit-out on his new bike for 2012 and the team seem very satisfied with the early progress.

In Moto2, an extended 3-day session which also included some CRT bikes AND the Ducati “works” team (but not with the “works” riders), wound up on Friday at Jerez. While some teams chose not to publish times (Ducati, who tested with Battaini and Carlos Checa), others were more forthcoming.

Fastest on all three days of the tests was Scott Redding on his new Moto2 bike, faster even than Colin Edwards on the CRT bike. Yonny Hernandez and Ivan Silva also tested CRT bikes.

As well, the BMW WSBK squad pratcised but didn’t release times. They move to Portimao in Portugal next week for another long testing session.

On Thursday, the Martinez team announced that it is increasing its commitment to the CRT formula by entering a 2-bike team in the MotoGp World Championship next year. They announced that Randy de Puniet and Aliex Espagaro will both be joining their team riding an Aprilia-engined bike. Frame manufacturer has not been decided upon at this stage with two different, but unnamed, frames being used in the tests this week.

In other Moto2 news, the Keiffer Team has announced that they have signed Max Neukirchner to the team to replace Stefan Bradl who is off to MotoGp with LCR. Quite what the thinking behind this is apart from the fact that he’s a German, I don’t know. He has been a failure in WSBK and in Moto2 so far (although the team for whom he has been riding, MZ, isn’t exactly flush with cash for bike development) Anyway, we will soon find out.

I went to the Sydney Motorcycle Expo yesterday. Apart from the fact that I reckon $22 for parking for a couple of hours is a bit rich (I’m not), I was pleased to be able to pay only $14 for entry because I am a senior (I knew there had to be an advantage to it somewhere). The show itself was good, very crowded which is a good sign and it was also pleasing to see that some manufacturers actually brought in models that have just been released on the show circuit in Europe. 10 points to Ducati, for example, for having an 1199 on display. It was also great to see that the trade and accessory side of things was very active as well. I didn’t see too much in the way of “show specials” but, then again, I wasn’t really in the market so I didn’t look that hard for them anyway.

This week is going to be pretty torrid. Helena goes in to hospital on Thursday to have the cancer in her breast removed and hopefully that will be the end of it. We’re keeping our fingers and toes crossed.

The front forks from the Kawasaki have arrived back from being re-chromed so that’s another small step along the way.

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“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

November 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You may recall that, a couple of months ago, I published my tentative riders’ list for MotoGp in 2012. I just found the rough draft of it on paper the other day when I was cleaning up the office. It does make interesting reading. Here it is again, just to refresh the memory.

Repsol Honda: Stoner, Pedrosa

Gresini Honda: Takahashi, ?

LCR Honda: Randy de Puniet

Yamaha “works”: Lorenzo, Spies

Yamaha Tech III: Dovizioso?, Crutchlow

Ducati “works”: Rossi, Hayden

Ducati PRAMAC: Barbera, Espagaro

Ducati Cardion: Abraham

Ducati ASPAR: ?

Suzuki: ?

So, let’s see what’s happened in the game of musical chairs.

Repsol Honda, Ducati “works”, Yamaha “works”, Yamaha TechIII and Cardion Ducati remain as suggested (Dovizioso since confirmed)

Gresini Honda: Gone is Takahashi and “in” is Alvaro Bautista with the collapse of Suzuki. Gresini’s second bike will be a CRT machine with an FTR frame and a CBR1000RR-derived engine. The rider for this bike is yet to be named. Takahashi (who was thought to be in the frame for this ride) moves to Forward racing to partner Alex de Angelis in Moto2

PRAMAC Ducati: Barbera confirmed, no confirmation of who the second rider will be. Many are suggesting that PRAMAC will drop back to a 1-bike team next year due to the expense of leasing bikes from Ducati.

LCR Honda: RdP is out, seemingly now without a seat at all and looking at WSBK or Moto2 and Moto2 champion, Stefan Bradl is “in”

Suzuki is gone until 2014 (may as well say “never”). Their 2011 rider was quickly grabbed by Gresini.

So, where do the CRT teams stand? And how many entries can we expect? Well, the answer to this question is about as murky as the Yarra on a bad day (most days). Courtesy of David Emmett at the always-reliable motomatters.com, here’s a detailed analysis of just what CRT is.

Here is his analysis on what’s happened so far (bear in mind it’s a couple of weeks old – West since confirmed as a CRT entrant, Paul Bird has announced Ellison as his rider and Takahashi is out of the frame, dropping back to Moto2 with de Angelis with the Forward team.)

Now I’ve crunched the proposed  numbers so far every way I can and I can’t see 20 more riders in this table. So, unless there are other teams lurking out there (and I’m sure there are) that would leave us with a potential grid of 24 riders. Not great, and only 12 of them on genuine prototype bikes, but certainly better than the 15 or so that we have been used to seeing this year. Will be watching with great interest to see who turns up for the first test of 2012.

In other news. Marc Marquez will miss this week’s final Moto2 est session, still suffering from double vision. This is starting to sound a deal more serious than what we were originally led to believe. I do hope that it isn’t.

A great article in visordown on zero mileage classics that are appearing for sale at the moment. Might be time to start working on that “dream garage” project!

Also, from the same source, the great little video that all learning riders will find disturbingly familiar.

And finally, nothing to do with motorcycling, but this amazing video shows a great bit of lateral thinking and clever technology. Simplest is best, I have been told. This proves it.

 

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Weekends

November 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are for relaxation, or so they tell me. But I seem to have spent all of it so far cleaning up my study, relocating cupboards and generally doing stuff that keeps you pretty busy. Having a break now but I bet there will be more to come.

Overnight more stuff happened. Let’s see if I can summarise for you.

Yesterday I flagged that RdP could be off to Ducati as a test rider, but, given the FIM’s relaxation of testing rules (see yesterday’s article) that would seem to now be unnecessary. Despite saying that he had no interest in CRT, it now seems that Randy could be off to Aspar’s team ON a CRT bike. Given Martinez’s close links to Aprilia, it should come as no surprise that the powerplant will be an Aprilia.

However, there is more to this scenario than what meets the eye. Overnight comes the suggestion that Aprilia may be going to not only supply engines to CRT teams, but also a chassis as well. This effectively would make them a manufacturer in the same sense as Honda or Yamaha but, instead of going into the top league, they could benefit from the more liberal regulations of the CRT arena and become a supplier. It makes sense because the end of 125′s effectively brought Aprilia’s role as a manufacturer of Grand Prix bikes to an end.  Since other CRT teams have already announced that they will be using Aprilia engines, I wonder how many of them will be using the complete Aprilia package? Factory test rider, Alex Hoffman, has been cutting laps of a WSBK-spec RSV4 on Bridgestone GP tyres at Valencia this week so it looks pretty much a “goer”

So, where does this leave the grid? Well, at the moment the top teams all now seem set with 12 “genuine” MotoGp bikes set for 2012 (following the official withdrawal of Suzuki overnight) The rest of the grid which must, according to the legal niceties, be at least 17 bikes, will be made up of CRT bikes and the current thinking is that it could be as many a 20 bikes! Yes, that’s right, 20. That would make a grid of 32 bikes, nearly twice what we have been used to seeing in the closing part of the 2011 season. Of course, the grid will be a two-part one with the factory bikes blitzing off into the distance and the rest of the CRT bikes fighting over the crumbs. But, before anybody decries this, it is good to remind ourselves that, in the “good old days” of 500cc Grand Prix racing, there were usually only a handful of “factory” bikes and the rest were “privateer” entries and yet the racing was still entertaining. So it may not be all doom and gloom. One this IS certain, however, the FIM and DORNA are going to make the absolute most of this opportunity to break the power of the manufacturers and to re-assert THEIR control of the sport and where it is heading.

Also in overnight is the news that Tony Elias will be dropping back to Moto2 with the Aspar team. He will be teamed with Nico Terol and the also-signed Aliex Espagaro will be promoted back into MotoGp on an Aspar CRT bike. He will probably ride alongside RdP (see above).

In WSBK, the Ten Kate team completed a successful two-day test at Qatar with both Jonathan Rae and Hiroshi Aoyama logging in as many laps as possible before the WSBK testing ban precludes any more track time till January 15th.

I don’t normally report on scooters, but, when BMW gets involved, you know that the clever Teutonic engineers have probably done something a little outside of the box. The following article shows that they have, indeed been working overtime.

Details of BMW’s new scooters.

On the home front, my wife’s tentative diagnosis of breast cancer has been confirmed and she goes into hospital on the 1st December for an operation to remove the small lump and also ensure that the cancer hasn’t spread anywhere else. It is a tense time for us at the moment, seemingly going through the motions not quite believing that it has happened to us. Support from friends and Helena’s work colleagues has been outstanding and we’ll just have to tough it out.

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Changes, changes

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

More of the pieces of the puzzle fell into place in the last couple of days.

Stefan Bradl was confirmed at LCR this morning leaving RdP out in the cold, probably headed to a testing job at Ducati. Bradl’s deal is for two years.

The Speedmaster team confirmed Anthony West on an Aprilia/FTR and Iannone to continue as their Moto2 rider.

Ancient British ex-Gp, ex-BSB, ex-WSBk rider, James Ellison has been confirmed at another British-based CRT team using a HondaCBR1000RR engine. Ellison was chosen because the team owners wanted to “keep the team as British as possible.” Funny, I thought that the idea would be to make the bikes as COMPETITIVE as possible. Oh well.

In Moto2, Forward Racing confirmed Yuki Takihashi to join Alex de Angelis in their outfit for 2102.

Dani Pedrosa may undergo more surgery on his troublesome shoulder during the off-season with a view to sorting out some lingering issues. If so, he probably still should be available for the first testing session of 2012.

In addition to a relaxation of the testing rules for 2012 (see previous article) the FIM has also mandated brake lever protection bars for next year with a view to hopefully preventing a lock-up type accident such as the Capirossi/Gibernau one of a few years ago.

In WSBK, Francis Batta has made good with his promise to not compete unless he can compete on Suzukis, announcing that he is pulling the pin on his racing effort. With Suzuki’s banner to be flown next year by the Crescent Suzuki Team next year (using Yoshimura engines) there was no room left for the man who gave Suzuki its only WSBK title (with Troy Corser)

In what is probably the most bombshell-type news, it has been revealed that work on the proposed Austin, Texas, circuit has been stopped following massive disagreements between the various parties involved over, surprise, surprise, money and contracts. With F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone already saying that he’d walk away from the American deal if the parties couldn’t come to agreement, the odds on the circuit being built at all are now lengthening.

Finally, on the industry front, here’s a really interesting technical appraisal of Honda’s new Integra engine.

Honda’s very clever Integra motor.

Filed Under: November 2011

Dear mum, well, you know the rest

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sorry I haven’t written lately, but things have been a bit chaotic here. Mostly it has surrounded my wonderful wife who had to have a second breast scan last week after the initial, regular mammogram showed a lump. A biopsy was taken and we should know the results of that tomorrow morning, but the likelihood is that it is a small cancer, hopefully detected early. With all the things that she has suffered over the last 2 years it seems so unfair that this should come along at this time. But, they tell me life isn’t fair so I guess we roll with the punches again. Your prayers, if you do that, and your positive thoughts would be greatly appreciated at this time.

On the Shadowfax front nothing has happened since last report. We are in “holding pattern” until all the parts that are at third-party suppliers and builders are returned and then it will be full speed ahead towards the Sheene in March next year.

In GP news, the usually-reliable GPWeek has announced this morning that Suzuki will NOT be competing in MotoGp next year, having failed to signal their clear intentions to DORNA by last Friday, the deadline imposed some time ago. It is understood that staff have been notified and that the  indication in the letters is that Suzuki intend to return in 2013 with an I4 powered bike. Alvaro Bautista made a wise move securing the Gresini seat when he did. Disappointment for John Hopkins, however, who was hoping to return to MotoGp in 2012 with Suzuki, troublesome hand injury notwithstanding. Hopper looks like heading to WSBK to take up the second seat on the Crescent Suzuki squad there. In other news, it is looking increasingly like Moto2 champion, Stefan Bradl WILL be in MotoGp next year after all, his very encouraging test at Valencia last week moving team boss Lucio Cecchinello to prefer him over the expected return of Randy de Puniet. Quite where this leaves RdP is up in the air at the moment.

Also in MotoGp of the Constructor’s Team (CRT) variety, news this week that Anthony West will be moving back to the series with the Speedmaster team, for whom Andrea Iannone presently rides in Moto2. Details and specification of the bike is not clear at this stage or whether Ant will take Warren Willing with him from MZ. It is to be hoped that he does.

GpWeek, the online magazine to which I subscribe, has a fascinating article this week, a detailed interview with Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of DORNA. In it he clearly states, amongst other things, that the time for factory domination of the sport is over; that DORNA will direct its major funding efforts towards the CRT teams in an effort to encourage the class to grow and that the proposed common ECU proposal, tipped for introduction in 2013 is only the beginning in a series of initiatives to limit expense and get more people and teams involved in the sport. Indeed, he says that the common ECU will begin being tested in May of next year. I do recommend that you read the whole article; in it you will see the blueprint for how DORNA will take away from the factories the power that they have over the sport and hand it back to the competitors. It makes fascinating reading.

GPWeek magazine

 

Filed Under: November 2011
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