So much happening, let’s start at the top.
1. HRC confirmed last night that, as expected, Dani Pedrosa will miss this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The official line is that his operation was more complex than just the simple plating of the collarbone and that more time is required for healing. It begs the question that, wouldn’t they have known that right from the start? And, if so, why wait till now to say so? But it gets more curious. Though Dani was present at Catalunya (you probably missed him because the cameras were all following Paris Hilton), there is a huge rumour circulating in Europe this morning that Dani COULD have raced but didn’t because he has re-injured his LEFT shoulder in a “training” accident. Dani’s brother is a champion cyclist and some are suggesting that Dani crashed a push bike. Others are saying that Dani was riding a supermotard bike to train and came off. There is even talk of the injury occurring as a result of a “domestic accident” (whatever that is)
In any event, it seems that Dani’s fitness to race is going to be under a cloud for some time yet. There is even talk, get this, that he may SIT OUT THE REST OF THE SEASON. It’s not as silly as it sounds. One would think that missing one more round would effectively put paid to his chances of winning the title this year, especially given the scorching form of Casey Stoner. Looking at how Rossi has struggled to come back to full fitness after his shoulder injury (he’s still not 100%, or so it’s said) HRC might be seriously thinking about cosseting their star rider for the rest of 2011 and ensuring that he IS 100% fit and strong before the start of the 2012 season (just 6 months away – less if you count to the start of Winter testing). Opponents of this theory point to the fact that his absence is going to seriously affect the testing schedule for the 2012 bike, but, really, Honda has Stoner, Dovi, their regular test riders and they can rope in Sic as well if needed so it’s not that big a deal. remembering that, to Honda, as long as a Honda rider wins, they don’t care, this scenario just could be in the wind.
2. PRAMAC look like dropping Ducati at the end of 2011 and leasing factory Hondas instead. With the Italian concern since 2005, it hasn’t exactly been a marriage made in heaven, so it makes sense to get with the strength and the strength at the moment certainly seems to be with Big Red. Capirex is expected to announce his future plans at Mugello and the big R word is expected to feature heavily. RdP has always performed best on a Honda so he’d relish the opportunity of getting away from the recalcitrant Ducati as well. PRAMAC are also said to be scaling back to just one bike next year, but Caramello shouldn’t worry too much as both the Aspar team and Karel Abraham’s AB team are looking to expand to a 2-bike effort for 2012 so if that comes to fruition, that would mean a net gain of one more bike.
3. Race Direction can’t seem to stay out of the news. Firstly they made a sow’s ear out of the Pedrobot/Simoncelli incident at Le Mans and then they copped a huge bucketing by the conspiracy theorists who assert that Zarco’s penalty wouldn’t have been given at all were it not for the fact that he deprived a Spanish rider of the win in last weekend’s 125cc race. Nonsense, but xenophobia runs deep, especially on certain British-based web sites. Now it seems that the Sofoglu/Simon incident is going to be investigated, long after the dust has settled as well. The above conspiracy theorists again point to the suggestion that nothing would have been done about this one either except for the fact that Simon is Spanish. Some people really do need to get a life.
4. Moto3. Honda debuted their challenger last weekend and KTM announced at the same time that they will be returning to the grand prix scene with a Moto3 bike. As well, the Spanish BeOn outfit also debuted their bike which will be a customer machine configured to suit what individual customers want.
I was talking to a mate in Canberra on the weekend, a former 125cc competitor of long standing and he gave me some figures that would seem to indicate that the Moto3 bikes are going to be considerably slower than the bikes they are replacing. Honda is quoting 84 kgs weight and 47 bhp. According to Paul, 125s are about 80 kgs at the moment but the top ones are said to be developing around 60 bhp.Alex Criville has already tested the Honda and it sounds very “gruff”, apparently.
5. Tragically, the Isle of Man has claimed another life overnight with a rider killed in the Supersport race.
6. Reference the Zarco/Terol incident. If you want to see just how hard the Frenchman worked to ensure that Terol DIDN’T win, this picture should confirm it for you!
7. Things are not happy at Ducati with Rossi said to have issued an ultimatum to the team to deliver a bike to him that “he can ride” by the Mugello round. There is an implied “or else” in there, but no-one who knows what it is, is saying. I think there can be no doubt that Rossi thought he’d waltz in to Ducati, they’d roll out the red carpet, do exactly what he and JB wanted and all would be sweetness and light. It hasn’t happened and I, for one, predicted this. The Ducati team has shown itself to be notoriously unwilling to change their direction from what THEY felt was right, witness the on-going front-end issues that dogged Stoner’s last season with the team. As noted before on this site, their blunt warning at the outset that they were “NOT going to build another Yamaha” just to please Rossi, SHOULD have been heeded by VR before he signed on the dotted line.
This wonderful Scott Jones image says a great deal, doesn’t it?