Much of the talk about Valentino Rossi and his injuries have centered on the Italian’s leg, which was broken with a compound fracture at Mugello earlier this year. Despite causing Rossi to miss several races, the Italian’s biggest physical concern hasn’t been his leg, but instead his shoulder, which he injured in April while motocross training. The shoulder has been a lingering issue for Rossi ever since his return at Brno, which culminated this weekend with the Fiat-Yamaha team actually having to setup the M1 at Aragon to work around the injury.
With a lackluster performance this weekend, not to mention a disappointing return to GP racing in general, Rossi announced after Sunday’s race that he was considering having his shoulder operated on after the three fly-away races (Motegi, Sepang, and Phillip Island), which would effectively mean that the nine-time World Champion would miss MotoGP’s last two stops at Estoril and Valencia. MotoMatters has once again done a superb job of transcribing Rossi’s interaction with the media on the subject, which adds some context to this development (read the transcript here)
This announcement is a big bombshell for the Yamaha camp, which could see its star rider, if we can still say that, again vacating from the team to heal his injuries. However again reading between the lines of the Italian, Rossi’s revelation this weekend has about as much to do with an injured shoulder as it does with putting pressure on Yamaha to release him from his contract in time to test the Ducati Desmosedici GP11 at Valencia.
Officially announced after today’s Aragon GP, Colin Edwards has signed-on with Monster Yamaha Tech3 for another year of racing with the satellite team. In what was Edwards’ 100th appearance on a Yamaha, the Texan had a disappointing finish, but has seen his best results while on the French team. Edwards will join his new teammate for next year, Cal Crutchlow, and help the British rider come up to speed on the 800cc Yamaha MotoGP bike, and the pair is highly favored to be the top satellite riders next season.
“I am delighted to have signed a new one-year contract with the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team,” said the Texan Tornado. “I want to say a big thanks to Yamaha and to Tech3 for their unwavering support. I am honoured to continue my long and successful relationship with Yamaha, Herve Poncharal and all at Tech3. I love the team and feel like part of a big family and I’m thrilled that our adventure together is continuing next year.”
The death of Shoya Tomizawa has rocked the MotoGP paddock and cast a dark cloud on the motorcycle industry. The tragic incident was especially tough on Scott Redding, one of the riders involved in the crash. According to Redding’s father, the British rider was initially uncertain if he’d return to motorcycle racing, but after taking some time to heal the laceration to his back, Redding now seems poised to return to Moto2 racing next week.
You may remember Motorland Aragon as the fourth Spanish-based track that was added to the MotoGP schedule after the Hungarian GP was canceled for a second time in two years. Set to play host to MotoGP on September 19th of this year, the Spanish track has also just gotten the nod to host World Superbike with its premiere facilities. However WSBK is taking a different tack from MotoGP, and instead of running two Spanish stops, Motorland Aragon will replace Valencia on the World Superbike calendar for 2011 (and on through 2013).
