Despite losing his Moto2 ride after the withdrawal of a major sponsor from the ESGP team, Gino Rea is to contest selected Moto2 rounds in 2013. The young Englishman has received the go-ahead from Dorna and IRTA to enter as a wildcard at as many races as he can raise funds for in the 2013 season.

With material support from FTR, Rea will be testing and racing the 2013 version of the FTR Moto2 chassis. The team, run by Gino Rea and his father David, currently intend to race at 11 rounds of the Moto2 championship – basically, all of the European rounds. The exact number of races they will appear at will depend on the amount of money they can raise.

That is the big question for Rea. The young Londoner still needs to raise some £20,000 to contest each round. Rea has received strong support from his fan base, raising money from individual donations through the Gino Rea Club website. That effort continues, while Rea is also searching for more traditional sponsors. After the jump is a press release issued by Gino Rea, complete with contact details for potential sponsors.

One of the more intriguing things about spending a few years in a racing paddock is watching people grow and mature. Young riders come in to the Grand Prix paddock as exuberant 15 and 16-year-olds, certainly with the anachronistic maturity of all dedicated sportsmen and women; but still clearly young teenagers, that explosive mixture of energy, hormones, and sheer joy driving them into paroxysms of hyperactivity. A few years later, those young boys (and now girls as well) turn into young men, and a fuller, more mature personality emerges.

Such is the case with Scott Redding. Three years ago, when he first moved to Moto2, he was still a teenager with an impish grin on his face, looking like he was either planning trouble, or just returning from it. At the launch of the Marc VDS Racing program last night, at the Belgian team’s workshop a stone’s throw from Charleroi airport, a different Scott Redding was on display, calmer, more mature, more serious but without having lost his sense of fun. More focused, too.

Redding knows that this year, he is playing for keeps. The goal is to either win the Championship, or go down trying. This is his best chance, perhaps, with the introduction of a combined rider/bike minimum weight removing some of the advantage of the lighter riders, though the new limit of 215kg for both rider and bike still favors riders closer to 60 kg than to 70kg. His preparation has changed, spending the winter in Spain, riding, rather than in the dull English winter, where MX tracks are open on Saturdays and Sundays only, for a couple of hours each day.

Scott Redding is ready to become Moto2 champion. A conversation with the young Englishman follows after the jump.

The long wait of so many MotoGP fans is nearly over. The 2013 MotoGP season is about to get underway, or rather, the phony war of testing, which is the first step on the road to the 2013 MotoGP season. In just a few hours’ time, the howl of the CRT machines will fill the grandstands at Sepang, joined two days later by the roar of the MotoGP prototypes.

The CRT machines have two extra days of testing ahead of the full test at Sepang, where the teams will have their first chance to test the new spec Magneti Marelli electronics system on track, after having first dialed the system on the dyno at their respective bases.

The system will be used by all of the CRT teams ,except for those running the Aprilia ART bikes, and so far, the reaction has been very positive to the capabilities of the system. This should come as no surprise, given that Magneti Marelli is the de facto standard in the MotoGP paddock, already in use by both Yamaha and Ducati, though both factories run their own custom software.

This is part 1 of a new series entitled ‘Under the Radar’. In it, we will be looking at stories we believe will have a major impact on MotoGP and World Superbikes in the next season, but which are not currently receiving much attention. While everyone expects Marc Marquez in MotoGP to be a big story, or Valentino Rossi’s return to Yamaha, these are the stories which you won’t hear much about by the start of the season, but which could end up playing a major role in 2013.

Everyone can guess the big names that are likely to make an impact in MotoGP in 2013: Marc Marquez will clearly be an exciting rookie to watch, Valentino Rossi should be competitive on a Yamaha, Pol Espargaro looks set to dominate Moto2, and Maverick Viñales and Luis Salom will be major players in Moto3. But look beyond the obvious candidates, and there are a number of candidates who could cause a surprise in 2013. Here are some of the riders to watch this season.

UPDATE: This bike is no longer available, though though the FTR Moto2 bike that Alex de Angelis used to win the Sepang round this year has just found its way back to the FTR shop.

Trolling the internet for things I can’t afford, but which my credit card can, I think I may have discovered the perfect gift for the motorcyclist who has everything: a 2011 FTR M211 Moto2 race bike that has been upgraded with 2012-spec components.

Featuring a Spanish CEV Moto2-spec Honda motor with 186 miles on it, this FTR M211 has plenty of tasty other bits that also justify its €39,000 (+VAT) price tag, such as the Öhlins suspension (FG366 forks, TTX36 shock), magnesium OZ wheels, AP brakes, Akrapovic exhaust, carbon fiber bodywork (Yonny Hernández’s Blusens livery), and titanium fastners.

It’s easy to forget that motorcycle racing is a sport for children. Their courage on track is remarkable, and even more so because of their young age. They start at five, four, sometimes three, riding their tiny motorbikes around the paddock or on dirt tracks in rural towns and lonely desert spaces and sometimes in organized series such as the Cuna Campeones Bankia.

At this moment there are thousands of kids either on their little machines or wishing they were riding, counting the minutes until they get to put the helmet back on and ride, perhaps just for the joy or perhaps with dreams of a world championship.

They have various levels of support from adults, ranging from the tolerant, to the indulging, to the demanding. As in all endeavors, most of the individuals either don’t reach their potential due to other demands on their time, energy or budget, or they approach that potential, and are judged to have too little talent in their bodies and minds to warrant moving to the next level.

Those who have the talent and desire, and are lucky enough to be recognized as such, might receive the support to compete at higher and higher levels. And sometimes by the onset of adolescence these kids are worldly and experienced in the ways of competition, travel, sponsorship, and so on.

So the 2012 MotoGP season is over, and someone with a great deal of courage and a little bit of money to wager could have ended the year rich beyond their wildest dreams at Valencia. If you could have found someone to take your bet seriously, you would have got a very, very good return on one race being won from the back of the grid, and the other from a rider starting from pit lane. Just one of those events is highly unusual, having both of the happen on the same day is unheard of.

The odds on Marc Marquez winning from the back of the grid were probably disappointingly short. By now, every bookmaker in the world will have seen the onboard clip of Marc Marquez stalling his bike on the grid at Motegi, and the way he disposed of twenty Moto2 competitors in the space of half a lap.

The first lap at Valencia is likely to create as much of a sensation – or at least it would, if Dorna would either resist the temptation to take down YouTube videos before they go viral to keep their TV rights holders happy, or make the videos available free of charge on the MotoGP.com website so that they can go viral while retaining control – as Marquez passed another twenty riders in the space of five corners.

The last of the 990cc pole records finally went at Valencia, along with the last record held by Valentino Rossi at any of the tracks currently on the calendar. Dani Pedrosa’s astonishing last lap was inch perfect, and put him 0.158 seconds faster than Rossi’s time, set in 2006 at the infamous season finale in which Rossi got a dismal start, then fell off trying to catch Nicky Hayden, handing the American the world championship in the process.

Pedrosa’s lap really was something special, though the Spaniard was not as impressed as the onlookers. He had had a few good laps in his career, he told the press conference, and this was definitely one of them. Pedrosa has looked ominous all weekend – actually, since Indianapolis – and if it were going to stay dry, then you would be hard put to think of anyone who could beat the Repsol Honda man.

Jorge Lorenzo is keen to try, and is fast all the way round the circuit to the final sector, but is losing a couple of tenths just in the acceleration out of the final corner and towards the line. The Hondas dominate there, good round the long left before the final corner – both Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa were hanging the rear out all round that turn, showing a hint of the old tire-smokin’ 990 days – but absolute missiles on acceleration.

That has been Lorenzo’s complaint all year, not sufficient acceleration and not the wheelie control which the Hondas appear to have. If Lorenzo arrives at the final corner with a Honda behind him, he will fear for his position.