Despite the track having been emasculated a few years ago to accommodate, amongst other things, a theme park (sacrilege), the riders still look forward to the Dutch TT at Assen. REMEMBER: The races are on Saturday night, our time.
There will be a LOT of changes this weekend.
1. Dani Pedrosa has confirmed that he won’t be racing. Honda is obligated to replace him for this, his 3rd DNS and Hiroshi Aoyama will graduate from the Gresini outfit to fill in Dani’s spot. Hiro’s spot at Gresini will be taken by Honda test rider Akiyoshi. NOW, it’s important to note that Hiro will be using Pedrobot’s engine allocation and so will Aki at Gresini. The FIM will not be giving special dispensation to either team on this matter.
2. Despite breaking (very badly) his collarbone last weekend at Silverstone, Tech III’s Cal Crutchlow WILL be at Assen and will attempt to ride, subject to a doctor’s clearance and also how he pulls up after FP1. Looks like Cal is trying to out-do his team mate Edwards who rode Silverstone only 9 days after having HIS collarbone plated. “Anything you can do I can do better.”
3. Ducati will debut the GP11.1 (as noted below). However, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with press reports overnight confirming that Ducati will “use the 2012 chassis” from Assen onwards. Only Rossi will have the new chassis for Assen, however. Ducati are struggling with engine life, too, Rossi having already used 3 engines and Hayden 4 and it’s only a third of the way through the season. Now, I find this chassis thing a bit “sus”. The FIM have said that they are not breaking testing rules by using “elements” of the 2012 chassis in 2011 as the 2012 bike is a different bike and they have observed the rules about testing it. BUT, if the GP11.1 (Ducati’s nomenclature, not mine) IS a complete new chassis, and it seems it IS, then how does that sit with the testing ban given that the chassis has been developed for NEXT year but is being used now. Surely this means that the testing done so far has benefitted THIS year’s bike and therefore falls OUTSIDE the testing rules for the current formula? I think this is a grey area that the other manufacturers are going to be looking at very closely. Here’s a link to gpone showing the first look at the this weekend’s bike.
If you haven’t got time to go there, here’s a piccie.
VERY different.
4. Here’s an interesting link from crash.net. It examines Casey Stoner’s stats for this year and compares them to his stats for his championship year, 2007. It concludes that Stoner is better placed now than he was at the same stage in 2007. I’m guessing his opposition probably doesn’t want to know that at this stage.
5. In non-GP news, Troy Corser will miss the next WSBK round at Brno on the 8-10th July with a broken ulna and radius in his left forearm. He has had to had an operation and the team are giving him plenty of time to recover. However, as you could expect from BMW’s Teutonic way of doing things, instead of hiring a young, up-and-coming rider to replace him, they have hired in Jeremy McWilliams. It’s bizarre, isn’t it?
6. Still on WSBK, Ten Kate will replace the still-recovering Jonathan Rae with English sensation, Alex Lowes. Lowes, twin brother of Sam who presently races in WSS, has been attracting a lot of high-profile attention in the BSB this year and this outing, should he use it right, could do his career and his profile no harm at all.