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WSBK: Ducati Signs Davies and Giugliano to Factory Team

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Ducati has announced its World Superbike lineup for the next two seasons. For 2014 and 2015, Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano will race the Ducati 1199 Panigale for the Italian factory, though details of the team structure are still pending. Testing is due to start for Davies and Giugliano at the end of October, initially with the Ducati test team.

After Alstare split from Ducati after the final round of 2013, there has been much speculation on who would take over the running of Ducati’s World Superbike squad. It is believed that it will come down to a choice between Feel Racing, who ran BMW’s WSBK entry in 2013, and have a long association with Ducati, or an internal Ducati team. The internal team is rumored to be the preferred option at the moment.

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MotoGP

Sunday Summary at Motegi: On the Unpredictability of Racing & Why You Should Never Trust Pundits

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There have been occasions over the past few years when I have asked Nicky Hayden how he manages to find the motivation to keep racing every Sunday. His answer is always the same, whether I have asked him after a surprise podium, or after coming in tenth: “You never know what can happen in the race. That’s why we line up.”

Hayden is living testament to his own deeply driven mixture of ambition, hope, and determination. His 2006 championship was won against the odds, and against the greatest rider of the period at the height of his powers.

Sunday’s races at Motegi – indeed, the races at all three of the flyaways – have been a shining example of the vicissitudes of racing. In all three classes, the presupposed script was torn up and thrown away.

In Moto3, young men facing pressure made major mistakes. In Moto2, one astounding comeback met with disaster, another astounding comeback met with triumph, and a championship. And in MotoGP, the champion-elect as of a couple of races ago is finding himself having to fight for his title. The season is only over once everyone crosses the line for the last time at Valencia.

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Bikes

First Photos of the KTM RC125 & KTM RC200

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If it is connected by a series of tubes, we will find it; and thus here are photos of the still unreleased KTM RC125 & KTM RC200 street bikes — the kid-siblings to the recently leaked KTM RC390. Like the RC390, the RC125 & RC200 are visually similar, and share a common vein in their Made-in-India single-cylinder engines.

No word on specs, but we foresee the 125cc and 200cc iterations sharing similar technical listings as their Duke counterparts. We should know more at EICMA, where all three of these street bikes are expect to debut. More photos after the jump.

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MotoGP

Saturday Summary at Motegi: An Impressive Lorenzo, A Determined Redding, & Cultural Sensitivities

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At the post-qualifying press conference at Motegi, Jorge Lorenzo reminded his audience of the last two times he had ridden in the wet. At Le Mans, he had had his worst race finish since his rookie season in 2008. Then at Assen, his growing confidence saw him get launched off the bike at over 250 km/h, and break a collarbone in his fall.

So when the MotoGP riders took to the track at a rain-soaked Motegi, Jorge Lorenzo had every reason to be cautious. He worked carefully building his rhythm for the first 20 minutes or so of the extended practice/qualifying session, before pushing on hard, eventually destroying the opposition with a lap just under 8 seconds off the dry race lap record. It was a testament to just how quickly Lorenzo can recover his confidence.

It was good just to have any action at the Japanese circuit. After fog had prevented the medical helicopter from arriving at the circuit on Friday, making practice impossible, teams and riders headed to the Motegi Twin Ring with hope in their hearts on Saturday morning. The fog was gone, and when the medical helicopter arrived at the track, a cheer went up in the media center. Practice was on.

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MotoGP

Vittoriano Guareschi Leaving Ducati for VR46 Moto3 Team

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Ducati team boss Vitto Guareschi is to leave Ducati at the end of this season and to manage the new Sky Moto3 team being run with the backing of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 merchandising franchise. Guareschi is to assume the role of team manager in the project, which has been set up with the express aim of developing new young Italian talent.

The team will field two riders, with Romano Fenati already having been signed for 2014, and a second rider yet to be announced. That rider will not be Rossi’s half-brother Luca Marini, as Marini has already signed a contract to race in the Spanish championship in 2014.

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MotoGP

Here is the Race Schedule for the Japanese GP

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The weather at Motegi over the past two days has had the organizers working frantically to draw up a new schedule fitting as much practice as possible into the available time.

After all of Friday was lost to fog, and then Saturday morning to torrential rain, Race Direction was left with just Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday to fit practice, qualifying, and the races.

Their solution was to run an extended period of qualifying on Saturday, followed by an extend practice session on Sunday morning, with the races taking place at the time originally planned. Despite the race times being unchanged, the revised schedule has left many fans uncertain of exactly what time the races are on.

This has been complicated even further by the summer time ending in Europe and the UK, putting the clocks back an hour in those countries, while time in Japan remains unchanged.

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MotoGP

Ben Spies Retires from Motorcycle Racing

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Ben Spies is to retire from motorcycle racing. The shoulder injuries the Texan suffered in the past year have cast doubts over whether his shoulders will ever be strong enough to race a motorcycle again, and so Ducati and Spies have come to a mutual agreement for Spies to terminate their contract after just one year. Accordingly, Spies’ retirement leaves the second seat at Pramac Ducati vacant for 2014.

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MotoGP

Friday Summary at Motegi: Of Fog, Earthquakes, & Trigger-Happy PR Teams

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Even the most secularist and rationalist motorcycle racing fan must by now be thinking that there is some kind of supernatural force at work trying to prevent MotoGP from happening at Motegi.

It started in 2010, when the race scheduled for April had to be moved back to October because of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland sent a massive cloud of ash into the skies over Europe which suspended all air flights just as the MotoGP teams were ready to fly to Japan.

In 2011, on the weekend of the Qatar MotoGP season opener, the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan, sending a devastating tsunami towards Japan destroying the coastal regions, then throwing in a disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for good measure.

So it came as no surprise that the first day of practice at Motegi ended up being scrapped due to the weather conditions. You could even say that to only have the first day of practice canceled was a lucky break, as earlier in the week it had looked like a typhoon could have blown through the area and forced the entire event to be called off. Instead, the typhoon track moved further east than expected, sparing Japan the worst of the wind and rain.

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