Marc Marquez entered MotoGP surrounded by hype and with high expectations. After a wet test at Valencia, where he showed he was fast, but not quite how fast, the Spaniard went to Sepang, where he posted very good times in a private test. At the full Sepang MotoGP tests, Marquez was genuinely impressive, never finishing outside the Top 4.

At Austin, Marquez stunned observers. The young Spaniard, still only a rookie in the MotoGP class, with only a few days on a MotoGP bike under his belt, dominated at the Austin test, topping the timesheets on all three days of the private test. It was not as if he didn’t have any competition at the circuit: both the factory Yamaha and Honda teams were at the Austin test, and Marquez beat Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi to set the fastest time.

So it was something of a surprise when Marquez failed to duplicate his impressive pace in Malaysia and Texas when MotoGP rolled up at Jerez for the final test of the season.

Though Marquez was 3rd fastest in the wet, once conditions improved – though they were never perfect – the Repsol Honda rookie got left behind a little, finishing the second day in 7th spot, nearly 1.2 seconds behind fastest man Valentino Rossi, and 5th spot on day three, 0.6 behind Cal Crutchlow.

Marquez left the three day test as 6th overall, six tenths behind the fastest man of the test Cal Crutchlow, and over a tenth behind Stefan Bradl, his main rival during the 2011 Moto2 season.

So what happened? Where did Marc Marquez’ speed suddenly disappear to? When asked by reporters on Sunday, the Spaniard had a few explanations. “Today was difficult,” Marquez acknowledged, “but I think it’s normal. It was the first time in dry conditions on this track.”

Three days of testing at Jerez is over, and the real star of the show is obvious for all to see: The Weather. Of the 18 hours of track time that the MotoGP riders had at their disposal, only about 4 were in consistent conditions, and that was in the pouring rain on Saturday.

An afternoon of dry track time – well, dryish, with groundwater seeping through the track from the hills at Jerez, which have been lashed by unusually heavy rain all winter long – on Sunday and a bright start to Monday morning left the riders hopeful, but it was not to be.

It took 15 minutes for the first rain to arrive. The track opened at 10am. At 10:15am, the rain started to fall, leaving most of the teams twiddling their thumbs in the garages and hoping for some dry track time.

Valentino Rossi being fastest in a dry MotoGP session brought joy to the hearts of his millions of fans, but also relief to the writers of motorcycle racing headlines. For the past two years, with the exception of a damp and freezing session at Silverstone, the media – especially in Italy – have spent many hours puzzling over how to shoehorn Rossi’s name into a news item without it appearing overly clumsy. With little success: “Pedrosa grabs pole, Rossi to start from ninth” sounds, well, as awkward as it does dispiriting.

On Sunday, there was no need for tricky sentence construction. Valentino Rossi grabbed the headlines the way he would want to, on merit. Under a warm sun, and a dry track – well, relatively, but more of that later – Rossi just flat out beat his teammate, and the factory Hondas, and all the other 24 MotoGP machines that took to the track for the second day of the test at Jerez.

Beating his teammate, even if it was by just fifteen thousandths of a second, was crucial. That hadn’t happened in any of the previous tests, and the gap between himself and Jorge Lorenzo stayed pretty constant: at least three tenths of a second.

It rained today in Jerez. Boy did it rain. The heavens were open for much of the day, with the intensity of the rain varying between a light drizzle and an absolute deluge, sending people scurrying for cover when the skies darkened too much.

A few brave souls ventured out to put in laps, but they did not last very long in the conditions. Until around 3pm, that is, when the rain let up, at least for an hour or so, and everyone took to the track. For two hours, testing was at full tilt, before the rain returned to chase most of the MotoGP men back into the pits.

Though having that much rain is hardly what the riders ordered, it still has its advantages. “It’s good to be able to test on a fully wet track,” Wilco Zeelenberg said after testing. “Normally, it’s that half-wet, half-dry stuff, which is hopeless.” Real work could be done on a wet set up, and lessons learned for 2013.

It has been a while since we posted about those crazy Spaniards at Radical Ducati, but long-time readers will remember fondly the exquisite custom motorcycles that Pepo and Reyes have created from the various pieces of Ducati’s finest.

It is hard to pick a favorite from machines like the Radical Ducati RAD02 Imola Cafe Racer, Radical Ducati Café Veloce, Radical Ducati Mikaracer, Radical Ducati Raceric, and Radical Ducati RAD 02 Corsa EVO, but our moto-lust keeps bringing us back to the Radical Ducati 9½ - a café racer styled motorcycle that uses an ST2 motor, a Monster 900 frame, and a 916 fuel tank and swingarm.

Getting its name from the ST2′s 944cc engine displacement, the 9½’s designation should tip-off where the Spanish firm has gone in its creation with the Radical Ducati 7½ Sportiva. Another water-cooled machine, the 7½ Sportiva ups the ante with the Ducati Superbike 749R taking the honor as its donor bike, while still remaining true to its predecessor’s café racer look and feel.

The Honda TT Legends team has big plans for the 2013 season, and accordingly announced a dream team of riders to race for the factory squad in the World Endurance Championship, Isle of Man TT, and various other road races.

While the EWC team will consist of John McGuinness, Michael Rutter, and Simon Andrews, Michael Dunlop replaces Andrews on Honda TT Legends banner when it comes to road racing events — a huge boon to the young Irish racer, and already a popular move with TT fans.

Now finished with its BOTT XR1 project, Spanish design and engineering house Bottpower has taken its American-powered street-tracker to Albaida, Spain for a little track time. A custom one-off build for a client, Bottpower has created the machine that Harley-Davidson should have envisioned with the Buell brand.

The BOTT XR1 looks genuinely fun to ride, and is more than eye-catching to our critical eye for design. We hope Bottpower’s plans for a do-it-yourself kit come to fruition, as we could use more of these beasts on the street.

Suzuki’s MotoGP return is drawing closer. Speaking to Crash.net‘s Peter McLaren, Suzuki test rider Nobuatsu Aoki confirmed that testing on the brand new bike – an inline-four with a big-bang firing order – was progressing well and that the bike would make its first public outing at the post-race test at Barcelona, after the MotoGP round there in mid-June. Aoki himself would be riding at the test, he said, alongside ‘one European rider’. That is widely expected to be Randy de Puniet, though Aoki refused to name the rider.

Ducati is getting ready for the international press launch of the 2013 Ducati Hypermotard in Ronda, Spain this week, which means we have a bevy of photos to share with you. Dropping its air-cooled dual-spark v-twin motor for an 821cc water-cooled lump, the 2013 Ducati Hypermotard is a truly a brand new model, from the ground up.

Getting cross-polinated with some of the design features found in the Ducati Multistrada 1200, the new Hypermotard really is a middleweight option to its bigger-displacement counterpart, though it still retains a presence of its own. Powerful and light, the Ducati Hypermotard continues to be a two-wheeled hooligan machine with enough suspension to soak up the bumps along the way.

We think Ducati did a nice job of retaining the Hyper’s unique character, while fitting the model into the company’s current motorcycle range and long-term goals. Of course, we haven’t gotten to ride one, and since we’re not in Spain this week, it looks like we’ll have to wait for the bike’s arrival at dealerships in March. Until then, there are 165 high-resolution photos waiting for you after the jump, enjoy.

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.