As noted yesterday, this weekend’s Catalan GP will go ahead without local star, Dani Pedrosa. Indeed, some pundits are suggesting that Pedrobot will be absent at Silverstone as well. If that IS the case, he can pretty much kiss goodbye his shot at the championship this year.
Barcelona is known for its long main straight and its tight and twisty back nine. Fans will be out in force, lining every vantage point with their horns and their firecrackers and their signs (which really make little sense unless you can actually read Spanish). They’ll have to transfer their support to Lorenzo and Elias in the absence of Pedrosa.
One thing IS certain, they’ll reserve their loudest manifestations for Marco Simoncelli who was AGAIN summoned to Race Direction during the week where he was told to “watch it, just watch it, OK?” and where he meekly apologised for his comments about the drive-through at Le Mans (though, tellingly, he did NOT apologise for his riding.) He did, however, agree to be more “cautious” Believe it if you will. The Spanish fans will certainly be scrutinising “Sic’s” every move you can be sure.
Honda used Press Day to finally debut their Moto3 contender for next year and what a jewel the NSF250R is.
“It is a typical Honda: in Guy Coulon’s words, it’ll be difficult to do better for the same money. HRC have kept the geometry and frontal area of the old, two-stroke RS125 and fitted an all-new DOHC single. The cylinder is inclined backwards at 15 degrees with the inlets at the front and the exhaust exiting from the back of the head. Check the packaging of the exhaust; how clever is that? In fact, in the usual Honda way, the way the whole thing is packaged is quite brilliant. It makes 47hp and weighs 84kg, 450 of them will be made available through (European) dealers by the end of the year. This is not a production racer, a hopped-up street bike, this is a genuine over-the-counter racer of the type that is almost extinct. You get cassette box, titanium valves, engine braking control, quickshift and two switchable ignition maps. There will be an ECU setting tool available as an option—at an as yet undetermined price.” (superbikeplanet)
Still on MotoGp, something looming on the horizon could end up being a whole lot more significant than the debut of a new bike and a new class.
According to Britain’s Financial Times, Infront Sports and Media – whose portfolio includes the commercial rights to the World Superbike Championship – is being put up for sale. AND, according to the same source, one of the three groups that have put in an EOI is the private equity group Bridgepoint who have, included in their portfolio, a majority holding in DORNA Sports, which owns the commercial rights to MotoGp. While it is early days yet, it could easily be seen that Infront, faced with the possible extinction of WSBK at the hands of DORNA’s 1000cc rules from 2012 onwards, has decided to bail while they still have a viable product. If Bridgepoint DO buy, it wouldn’t be hard for them to “combine” the two forumlae as a sop to the die-hard WSBK supporters and then quietly drop the idea in a year or so, leaving them as the sole provider of world championship motorcycle racing.
Bearing in mind that this is all being played out in conference rooms by faceless bean counters who, for all we know, know NOTHING about motorcycle racing but everything about making money, this is a VERY worrying scenario.