Less than two months after winning Suzuki’s first MotoGP championship in 20 years, Davide Brivio has decided to leave his role as manager of the Suzuki Ecstar MotoGP team and move to lead the Alpine F1 team in four-wheel racing’s premier class.
The move was reported last night by Autosportand confirmed by a press release from Suzuki this morning.
The news comes as a massive shock to Suzuki and the MotoGP world. It is also a serious blow to Suzuki’s MotoGP project.
Italian motorcycle maker MV Agusta, and Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton have re-upped their contract for collaboration, and one of the first fruits of that labor is a limited edition MV Agusta F4 superbike.
Confirming our story from earlier today, the MV Agusta F4 LH44 picks up where the MV Agusta Dragster RR LH44 left off, adding Hamilton’s “unique” tastes and stylings to MV Agusta’s tapestry of motorcycles.
Like with the MV Agusta F4 RC, the exercise is primarily visual, though like on the RC edition, MV Agusta adds its race kit to the package, which is good for a claimed 212hp.
The big technical change of note is the titanium race exhaust from SC Project, which does away with the beautiful four-pipe undertail exhaust that Massimo Tamburini made famous, and replaces it with a single canister, a nod to Leon Camier’s current WorldSBK-spec racing machine.
Our friends at Motor.nl have a good scoop for Italian motorcycle fans, as MV Agusta is about to release later today a Lewis Hamilton edition of its iconic MV Agusta F4 motorcycle.
Like the MV Agusta Dragster RR that also brandishes the F1 stars name, this F4 is expected 1) to be mostly a visual exercise, and 2) show the furthering bond between the Italian marque and the British driver, which just renewed their contract with each other.
Meanwhile, rumors that Lewis Hamilton would wild card alongside Leon Camier at the next WorldSBK round appear to be unfounded, though profoundly intriguing to consider.
In addition to the 2016 MV Agusta Brutale 800, the other big new model release from the Varese brand is the MV Agusta Dragster RR Lewis Hamilton, a bike that pays homage to the reigning Formula 1 World Champion.
The concept is pretty simple, take MV Agusta’s already attractive Dragster RR model, and let Mr. LH44 go wild on it. The idea is to create another collectable MV Agusta model, so things stay pretty much the same for the Dragster RR’s 140hp motor and steel trellis frame.
The rest of the bike though, gets a solid going-over, by Lewis Hamilton himself, if you can believe the MV Agusta press release.
You remember the MV Agusta Dragster RR right? The Brutale 800 without a tail section? Of course you do…it was pretty bold design from MV Agusta, which is probably saying something, considering that the Varese brand tends to lead with design, rather than follow.
It turns out that Lewis Hamilton is a bit of a fan of the machines from MV Agusta – it also helps that AMG has a 20% interest in the Italian brand, and Hamiliton is the team’s star F1 driver, at least when teammate Nico Rosberg isn’t around – so, in true MV Agusta fashion, a special limited edition machine must be produced, right?
Behold, the Lewis Hamilton Dragster RR: a collaboration between the F1 World Champion and the Italian motorcycle marque. MV Agusta hasn’t quite revealed the machine yet, but this teaser video does a pretty good job of getting the point across. We took some stills, just in case the edits were too much for you.
Red Bull are poised to make two dramatic announcements over the next two weekends, we can exclusively reveal. At next weekend’s Bahrain F1 race, the Austrian energy drink firm will announce its withdrawal from the premier four-wheeled racing series at the end of 2014.
A week later, at the Austin MotoGP round for which it is the title sponsor, Red Bull is to announce that it is to purchase Bridgepoint Capital’s remaining stake in MotoGP, and take over the running of the series.
Sources in the private finance industry with knowledge of the situation say that Bridgepoint has been looking to rid itself of its motorcycle racing business for some time. The private equity firm had acquired 71% of Dorna in 2006, at the peak of MotoGP’s popularity, reputedly for £400 million.
Since then, they have seen the value of their investment drop, and have been looking to get their money back from the deal ever since. The sale of a 39% stake in Dorna to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment board was the first step in recouping their investment.
That deal was rumored to be worth €400 million, or just over 70% of their initial outlay. Sources with knowledge of the situation say that Red Bull is to acquire the remaining 32% of Dorna for around €300 million , but with full control over the series.
Construction of the Circuit of the Americas outside of Austin, TX has resumed, after the track finally secured its contract with Formula One for a 2012 round. Work at the Circuit of the Americas had been suspended indefinitely after a contract between F1 and CotA was not signed by its appropriate deadline. However with Formula One Boss Bernie Ecclestone now getting his blood money, construction can once again resume in Texas.
Announcing that Formula One would race on a street course in New Jersey, along the shore of the Hudson, Eccelstone sent an all-too-clear message to the Texan venue that it was not the only option for F1 in the USA. While entirely an issue of posturing within Formula One’s circles, the spill-over affect of the Circuit of the Americas shutting down construction had obvious ramifications for MotoGP’s intention of running a Texan GP in 2013. From the looks of things, the Texan MotoGP round should not be affected by stoppage in work, and should proceed as planned.