It’s amazing. Sometimes you can go days and days without any significant news and then other days you’re deluged in it. Today is one of the latter, so let’s get down to business.
1. Valentino Rossi will TEST (and perhaps race) a new Ducati again at Aragon, Already christened the GP11.2, the bike is the one shown here a couple of days ago and it features, not a twin-spar aluminium frame but a “mini-frame” that would normally be made of C/F but made of aluminium instead. Full details here.
2. At the pre-Aragon press conference, Rossi announced that he would be going to Motegi. Expect the rest of the hard-liners to fall into line now.
3. Repsol will be debuting a special livery for its team bikes at Aragon this weekend. Not quite sure why, perhaps because it is a Spanish round.
4. Aussie youngster, Jack Miller, rides in the final round of the IDM this weekend and could win the championship with a good performance.
5. Supersonic, the team for which the reigning WSBK Superstock 1000 champion rides, has announced that it will be pulling out of the championship at the end of the year. The GFC is still biting.
6. Keifer Racing, the team for which Moto2 championship leader, Stefan Bradl rides, has announced that it will not be pursuing its entry into the CRT class in next year’s MotoGp world championship. Funding from their major sponsor, Viessmann, has been withdrawn. I think I did say a long time ago that companies are not going to spend a hatful of money to sponsor a bike that’s going to be lapped halfway through the race. Given that Keifer was one of 6 teams with an accepted entry for 2012 and that there has been deafening silence from the other contenders thus far, (barring CEII’s announcement), I expect the idea to die a quiet death fairly quickly. It leaves Bradl out in the cold, though as his chance of a private Honda has evaporated and the interest that WAS being shown in him by Tech III has also dried up.
7. Marco Melandri was fastest on Day 2 of the WSBK test session at Misano earlier this week. It always amazes me how teams can record excellent results in testing and then fail to back it up on race day.
8. Leon Haslam has announced that he is signing on for another year with BMW WSBK. The question is “why” but then again, some ride is better than none, I guess. Troy Corser’s future is not clear with many expecting him to announce his retirement at the end of the season.
9. On the subject of the WSBK test, Tony Elias, MotoGp failure of the year, was invited by BMW Italia to test the WSBK bike. He didn’t impress, being nearly 2 seconds slower than Melandri’s best time. Retirement looms for the Spaniard, methinks.
10. And last, but not least, not one single item about Marco Simoncelli this week. The Italian press must be on holidays.
Now, a blast from the past. Here is Australian superbike legend, Robbie Phillis at his first road race meeting in April 1976. The track is Hume Weir and his bike is a CR125 motocross bike with a K81 Dunlop on the rear and a trials universal tyre on the front. You’ve come a long way, mate.
