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October 2012

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Ducati North America Q3 2012 Sales up 24%

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Ducati North America has some impressive Q3 2012 sales numbers, as the Italian brand is up 24% over the same time period from last year. Its ninth-straight quarter of retail sales growth, Ducati North America owes a great deal of its success surprisingly to the Ducati Diavel, which was Bologna’s strongest model for growth in September. Ducati North America’s sales were up 40% in September.

Ducati hopes that 2012 will be a record year for the company, with sales from the Ducati 1199 Panigale helping fuel that enthusiasm. While Ducati remains bullish about the Panigale’s sales, our Bothan Spies have hinted that the new superbike hasn’t exactly met the initially high-sales expectations.

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Racing

MotoGP: Could Engines Decide the Championship?

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Ever since Jorge Lorenzo’s #3 engine went up in smoke at Assen, after the Factory Yamaha man was scuttled by Alvaro Bautista in the first corner, MotoGP followers have been asking themselves whether Jorge Lorenzo will make it to the end of the season with the remainder of his allocation, or whether he will have to take a 7th engine and start from pit lane at some point.

As each race goes by, the questions have become more urgent: will this be the race where Lorenzo finally runs out of engines, and hands Dani Pedrosa the advantage in the championship fight?

So how is Jorge Lorenzo doing with his engines? Is he, as many suspect, in imminent danger of losing an engine, and with it potentially his second World Championship? What strategies have his pit crew been using to manage with one engine prematurely withdrawn? And will those strategies be enough to see him through to the race at Valencia?

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News

Ducati Forms a Brazilian Subsidiary

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Ducati has announced today that is has created a wholly-owned subsidiary for the Brazilian market, following the news that its current importer, the Izzo Group, has shutdown its business due to current economic situation. Part of a larger issue in Brazil with the Izzo Group, which was the country’s largest motorcycle importer, Ducati‘s move ensures the Italian brand’s ability to sell in the growing South American economy.

Headquartered in São Paulo, Ducati Brazil will be the Bologna brand’s base in Brazil, which has extremely high tariffs on foreign goods. Importing complete knock-down (CKD) kits to Ducati Brazil, Ducati will have a minimal manufacturing presence in the South American country, and will be essentially assembling its motorcycles within Brazilian borders in order to side-step loopholes in the Brazil import regulations.

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Bikes

Three Flavors of MV Agusta Brutale 1090

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We have already showed you MV Agusta’s teaser video of its four-cylinder Brutale line-up for 2013, which featured only 1078cc machines, and seemingly dropped the MV Agusta Brutale 920  from the company’s repertoire (its entry-level position taken by the 2013 MV Agusta Brutale 675). Teasing three versions of its MV Agusta Brutale 1090 street-naked, MV Agusta has confirmed the three models today: the MV Agusta Brutale 1090, MV Agusta Brutale 1090 R, & MV Agusta Brutale 1090 RR.

Spreading three models over this narrow niche, the 203 MV Agusta Brutale 1090 & 2013 MV Agusta Brutale 1090 R feature a 142 hp / 82 lbs•ft 1078cc package, while the peppier MV Agusta Brutale 1090 RR get a power boost to 156 hp, though is down to 73.74 lbs•ft of torque according to MV Agusta’s typotastic website. All three machines appear to be very peaky with their power, and come with MV Agusta’s traction control system that first debuted on the MV Agusta F3.

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Racing

MotoGP: Phillip Island to Name Corner after Casey Stoner

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The Phillip Island circuit is to name Turn 3 after Casey Stoner. A ceremony is to be held on Thursday at 11:45am local time to name the corner in honor of the 2007 and 2011 World Champion.

Stoner joins Mick Doohan and Wayne Gardner, Australia’s other two premier class World Champions, in having a part of the iconic Australian circuit named after him. Doohan has the first corner named after him, and the front straight running past the pits and into Doohan corner is named after Gardner.

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MotoGP: Ben Spies to Miss Phillip Island Round

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As if crashing out of the Malaysian GP wasn’t bizarro enough, Ben Spies has announced today that he will be missing the Australian GP, as it has become evident that he injured his shoulder in his wet-weather tumble at Sepang. Although found to have no injuries by the Clinica Mobile staff at the circuit, after undergoing tests in Kuala Lumpur post-race, Spies found that he had sustained an AC shoulder separation, a cracked rib in the upper-chest area, and bruising to his lung.

Returning to the US for treatment on Tuesday, Spies will accordingly miss the MotoGP’s next stop, which is at Phillip Island. His participation in the last round of the season, the Valencian GP, is now in question as well, though it could be possible for the American to be healed enough to race within that time frame.

Though this season has been a string of highly suspicious instances of bad luck for the factory Yamaha rider, Valencia will be important round for Spies, as the post-race test will be the first opportunity for him to ride the Ducati Desmosedici race bike.

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Sunday Summary at Sepang: Of Championships, Red Flags, Rulebooks, & Riders on a Roll

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The Grand Prix Circus came to Sepang with three titles in the balance. Only one of them got wrapped up on Sunday, though, tropical rainstorms throwing a spanner into the works of the other two, but generating some fascinating racing. The fans had one fantastic dry race, one fantastic wet race, and a processional MotoGP race that looked much the same as it would have had it been dry.

There was a packed house – over 77,000 people crowded into the circuit, a highly respectable number for a flyaway round – cheering on local heroes, there was confusion over the rules, and there were a lot of new faces on the podium.

There was also a much better balance of nationalities on the podium: where in previous races, the Spanish national anthem has been played three times on a Sunday, at Sepang, it was only heard once. Most of all, though, the Moto2 and MotoGP races ran in the wet would be determined by the timing of the red flags, with Race Direction’s decisions on safety also having an outcome on the results of the races, and in the case of MotoGP, possibly implications for the championship.

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MotoGP: Slippery Slope at the Malaysian GP

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As was forecasted, the rain made its appearance for the start of the Malaysian GP being held at Sepang. The wet weather of course meant all bets were off for what could happen on this third-to-last round in the MotoGP Championship, and the adverse conditions increased the possibility of some “off-road excursions” by the riders. No one had more to lost from such a proposition than current points leader Jorge Lorenzo.

Sitting 28 points ahead of Dani Pedrosa, the factory Yamaha rider needed only to stay upright on his machine to retain control of the 2012 MotoGP Championship title, but with the rain in Sepang, that simple task could prove to be more difficult than anyone imagined. Needing to grab back as many points as possible, no one probably welcomed the rain more than Dani Pedrosa…well, except maybe the Ducati riders, which made for some high-stakes in the otherwise low-action race

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Saturday Summary at Sepang: Of MotoGP’s Future in the East, Honda’s Chatter, & The Chances of Rain

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This year’s Malaysian round of the MotoGP series has offered a glimpse of the future, for those with an interest in seeing it. While the series is locked in a series of arguments over the future of the technical regulations, the massive economic problems in its key television markets, and the Spanish domination of the sport in all classes, Sepang pointed the way forward, and that way is definitely east.

It starts with the crowds. Where crowd numbers have been falling almost everywhere at the European rounds, Sepang is seeing record attendances this weekend. Grandstand tickets are selling out fast, and despite the rain, fans are turning up in large numbers.

How much those numbers are being inflated by Australians flocking to the circuits they can fly to affordably to see Casey Stoner ride the last few races of his career is uncertain, but that they should be packing the grandstands in Malaysia seems unlikely. There are also plenty of local fans, coming to see riders from the region threaten the top of the time sheets for the first time in history, and not just make up the numbers at the rear.

They have had a treat this weekend. On Friday, local wildcard Hafizh Syahrin topped an admittedly wet session of Moto2 free practice by getting out early when it was relatively dry, but he had sufficient competition for his result to have been noteworthy.

On Saturday morning, Japanese rider Takaaki Nakagami topped Moto2 FP3, once again by judging the conditions correctly. And on Saturday afternoon, the fans were in for a massive treat, when Zulfahmi Khairuddin bagged his first ever pole position in front of his home crowd, becoming the first ever Malaysian to start from pole in a Grand Prix. And on his 21st birthday too.

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MotoGP: Qualifying with a Message at the Malaysian GP

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With the weather constantly the x-factor in the 2012 MotoGP Championship, the Malaysian GP unsurprisingly has seen Mother Nature play an integral part at Sepang. Limiting on-track practice time, things were surprisingly dry for MotoGP’s qualifying session, though riders came out of the pits immediately to bank some solid lap times. As the session wore on though, and the weather held, a display of talent proceeded, and another track record succumbed to the 1,000cc prototype machines.

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