Testing at various tracks this week has shown up some interesting things and also helped to further consolidate the shape of the grids for 2012. In Moto3, Maverick Vinales had his first hit-out on his new bike for 2012 and the team seem very satisfied with the early progress.
In Moto2, an extended 3-day session which also included some CRT bikes AND the Ducati “works” team (but not with the “works” riders), wound up on Friday at Jerez. While some teams chose not to publish times (Ducati, who tested with Battaini and Carlos Checa), others were more forthcoming.
Fastest on all three days of the tests was Scott Redding on his new Moto2 bike, faster even than Colin Edwards on the CRT bike. Yonny Hernandez and Ivan Silva also tested CRT bikes.
As well, the BMW WSBK squad pratcised but didn’t release times. They move to Portimao in Portugal next week for another long testing session.
On Thursday, the Martinez team announced that it is increasing its commitment to the CRT formula by entering a 2-bike team in the MotoGp World Championship next year. They announced that Randy de Puniet and Aliex Espagaro will both be joining their team riding an Aprilia-engined bike. Frame manufacturer has not been decided upon at this stage with two different, but unnamed, frames being used in the tests this week.
In other Moto2 news, the Keiffer Team has announced that they have signed Max Neukirchner to the team to replace Stefan Bradl who is off to MotoGp with LCR. Quite what the thinking behind this is apart from the fact that he’s a German, I don’t know. He has been a failure in WSBK and in Moto2 so far (although the team for whom he has been riding, MZ, isn’t exactly flush with cash for bike development) Anyway, we will soon find out.
I went to the Sydney Motorcycle Expo yesterday. Apart from the fact that I reckon $22 for parking for a couple of hours is a bit rich (I’m not), I was pleased to be able to pay only $14 for entry because I am a senior (I knew there had to be an advantage to it somewhere). The show itself was good, very crowded which is a good sign and it was also pleasing to see that some manufacturers actually brought in models that have just been released on the show circuit in Europe. 10 points to Ducati, for example, for having an 1199 on display. It was also great to see that the trade and accessory side of things was very active as well. I didn’t see too much in the way of “show specials” but, then again, I wasn’t really in the market so I didn’t look that hard for them anyway.
This week is going to be pretty torrid. Helena goes in to hospital on Thursday to have the cancer in her breast removed and hopefully that will be the end of it. We’re keeping our fingers and toes crossed.
The front forks from the Kawasaki have arrived back from being re-chromed so that’s another small step along the way.