Hiroshi Aoyama tested at Brno yesterday and, while he said he felt comfortable, he was still a fit bit off the pace and is reserving judgement as to whether he will ride at Indianapolis this weekend.
Picture courtesy Motorcycle News (not taken at Brno)
In other news, it looks like Yamaha is going to play hard-ball with Rossi over his decision to quit and go to Ducati. Whereas most teams will allow their riders to test for their new team at the Valencia test (the season being over) it seems Yamaha are going to stick by the letter of Rossi’s contract and not release him to test at all until after 31st December. That will leave Rossi only one, mid-January test before the season proper begins. Rossi is whining about it, of course, as is the Italian press, but, really, what DID they expect? Yamaha had already flagged that this would be the case.
To add insult to the injury, both Lorenzo AND Spies tested the 2011 bike yesterday (though only briefly), evaluating some new Ohlins front forks.
Rossi was confined to riding his present M1 with some slight fork modifications. Repsol Honda tested some new components including a thumb-operated rear brake mechanism that Andrea Dovizioso apparently prefers (shades of Mick Doohan). Pedrosa crashed heavily and bruised his chest and his hand but was OK.
I had a really good ride to the Pie Shop today, a pratically clear run on the way up, but mired behind a straight line hero on a Z1000 on the way down. Crawled around the corners but refused to let me slip by on the straights, needs to go back and learn how to ride. Never mind, I had fun anyway.
The Oxford distributor called this afternoon to let the shop know that the replacement controller box for my heated hand grips was sent to them on Monday. About time, too. Winter will be over soon and I won’t have used my toasties at all.
