For qualifying at Phillip Island, it would be safe to say that the weather conditions were tricky. Cold, cloudy, windy, with at times drops of rain, both MotoGP and Moto2 had to overcome the variable climate at the coastal Australian track.

With three turns clocking well over 200 km/h (~125 mph), Phillip Island is a fast circuit, but not necessarily a circuit dominated by bikes with a lot of horsepower. Instead, rhythm is the name of the game at PI, with the riders who are able to navigate the circuit’s intricacies benefiting the most: cue Casey Stoner.

Almost a full season now into the great CRT experiment, Phillip Island is one of the circuits where the production-motor machines can shine brighter, and none of them shine brighter than Team Aspar’s Aprilia ART.

Embarrassing some prototype machines during Saturday’s sessions, Randy de Puniet will start on the grid Sunday right next to Valentino Rossi, having qualified only 0.006 seconds behind the factory Ducati rider. Behind him will be the other prototype Ducatis, with Aleix Espargaro also in the mix.

The progress of the Aprilia ART is said to be down to Aspar getting a new set of motors from Aprilia Racing for the Australian GP, with those new motors making a sizable step in horsepower (+10hp according to Cal Crutchlow).

With the WSBK-spec Aprilia RSV4 Factory proving to be a potent machine in its own right, MotoGP’s CRT riders are clearly benefiting from getting closer to Aprilia Racing’s capabilities, but what about the Honda-powered 600cc Moto2 machines?

One of the biggest compliments ever made regarding the Aprilia RSV4 was actual meant to be a criticism, as when it came time to homologate the RSV4 for World Superbike racing, the competition cried afoul — saying the RSV4 Factory was really a MotoGP bike in a production bike’s clothing. Said to be the leftovers from Aprilia’s aborted MotoGP effort, the Aprilia RSV4 had a meteoric rise in WSBK, and won the Championship after only the company’s second season back in the series.

It should come then with little surprise that the Aprilia and its V4 motor has been the popular choice for teams in the MotoGP Championship looking for a claiming-rule team (CRT) solution. Dubbed the ART, the Aprilia-powered CRT bike also features an aluminum chassis that is designed by the Italian company. Thus with Aprilia offering essentially a turn-key GP solution for teams like Aspar Racing, it probably shouldn’t shock us that the similarities between the production WSBK-spec RSV4 and prototype ART being almost too close to distinguish between the two, even down to the bodywork.

Given the fact that Dorna desperately needs an alternative to prototype racing machines built by Ducati, Honda, and Yamaha for its CRT gamble to work — not to mention the need for CRT bikes and teams that are competitive on the track with the bikes from the OEMs — one can only imagine that Dorna is turning a blind eye to obvious “bending of the rules” that is occurring with the ART project. If the ends justify the means, then surely none of this matters to Ezpeleta et al, and right now Randy de Puniet and the Aspar Racing team’s CRT effort are the MotoGP rights holder’s best bet at recapturing control of MotoGP racing.

That all being said, the Power Electronics Aspar team debuted its ART race bike, and as is the custom, disclosed only some of the most basic technical specifications about the machine. At the helm of Aspar’s ARTs will be Randy de Puniet and Aleix Espargaro, and while the CRTs as a whole have been off the pace of the prototype bikes, RdP’s pace on the Aprilia has been noticeably quicker, and could give some of the slower satellite riders a run for their money. Technical details and photos are after the jump.

MCN and GPone are both reporting that the Mapfire Aspar team has decided to drop Ducati for 2012 season, after being incable of coming to terms with the Italian motorcycle manufacturer. Unable to negotiate an amicable lease price on the Ducati Desmosedici GP12, the Aspar MotoGP team has instead opted to cut its costs dramatically, and run a CRT machine for the 2012 season.

With close ties to Suter, which helps power the Aspar Moto2 effort, a BMW/Suter machine is at the top of the speculation list, though MCN says Aspar has also expressed interest with Aprilia (another company Aspar has close ties to) regarding using a RSV4 motor.

FTR has been working on an RSV4 CRT race bike, though there is also talk that the engineering firm has shelved that project. Idle-speculation could see the two parties linking up and reevaluating the concept, especially since many in the MotoGP paddock view the Aprilia RSV4 as a MotoGP bike built to meet World Superbike specifications.

Breaking his tibia and fibula at the Catalan GP, Julian Simón will continue his recovery, and miss the next Moto2 race, which is at Assen this weekend. Replacing the young Spaniard is Elena Rosell, who currently is eleventh in the CEV Stock Extreme series (she sits third in the privateer category), and with this appointment she will be the first female rider ever to compete in the Moto2 Championship. Rosell is also the first female rider ever for the Mapfre Aspar Team, and the first woman to compete in GP racing since 2003.

If you follow my Facebook page, you may have seen a similar image a few weeks ago, and read the story about how many tries it took to get an instance of the blue fire. Here it is again for those who missed it.

On Saturday night of the 2011 season opener, I was working in the pit lane when I noticed something visually striking. When some bikes were revved up by the mechanics in front of the pit boxes, every now and then some blue flame would appear deep within the exhaust pipe. This blue fire was visible for a tiny fraction of a second, but I thought if I could capture one appearance it would be an interesting image. We often see unburned fuel escape from engines and flame out from exhaust pipes, but during the day this fire is orange. But there is something about the night lighting in Qatar that makes it this distinctive blue.

The Pagina Amarillas Aspar Ducati team has announced that they have retained the services of rider Hector Barbera for the 2011 season. Barbera has shown good results for the true satellite Ducati team in his rookie season, currently sitting 12th in the MotoGP Championship standings, and the top non-factory Ducati rider in the paddock.

Jorge “Aspar” Martinez has once again been linked with being a part of Aprilia’s alleged entry into MotoGP racing. Reportedly working with Aprilia to develop a 1000cc motor based off the RSV4 Superbike powerplant that’s dominating World Superbike right now, Aspar and Aprilia have denied any intention to go racing together in MotoGP.

For his part, Aspar currently has his hands full racing in all three of the GP series, while Aprilia has voiced that its priority right now is winning in WSBK. The final nail in the coffin for this rumor is its timeframe of a 2011 entry, which barring another rule change from the GP Commission, is still an 800cc rule year.

Paginas Amarillas Aspar Team, the MotoGP team headed by Jorge “Aspar” Martinez, has just released it’s livery for the 2010 season. Now we’ve seen Ducati’s in yellow racing trim before, and it was no big deal. But for some reason, this goldenrod Ducati Desmosedici just doesn’t look quite right, and unfortunately for Aspar’s rider Hector Barbera, we’re starting the short bus jokes as of right now. Leave your own in the comments section.

In an announcement today by the Piaggio Group, Aprilia has officially abandoned its Moto2 project, and will not be competing in the 250GP replacement series, nor will it be providing race equipment for other Moto2 teams. The main reason for Aprilia abandoning the project is due to the spec-motor rule that sees a modified 600cc Honda powerplant used by all the teams, but as this rule has been known for some time, there is some confusion on why Aprilia waited so long to make this decision.

After much ado, Suzuki has confirmed that they have signed Alvaro Bautista for next year’s MotoGP season. Bautista had been pursued rather intently this last month by his old 250GP boss, Jorge “Aspar” Martinez (pictured above), for his satellite Ducati team, which will be debuting next season. However, Bautista has been resistant to the idea of riding the Desmosedici, and was looking for a factory ride, which only Suzuki can provide.