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January 2014

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When Alstare split from Ducati Corse in World Superbike, there was some speculation as to where the Belgian-based racing team would land, and it would seem the trip hasn’t been a far one.

Linking up with the recently acquired Bimota brand, Alstare has signed a five-year agreement to collaborate with the Italian brand, and will serve as the worldwide racing department for Bimota — with a key focus on developing Bimota’s Moto2 and WSBK racing platforms, the latter centering around the recently launched Bimota BB3.

Alstare’s technical expertise will also be responsible for developing Bimota’s future sports and supersport models, while the firm’s communications and marketing experience will serve as Bimota’s race marketing department.

In total, the essence of the deal sees Alstare playing a vital role in Bimota’s business plans, from developing new models, honing race bikes, finding sponsors, and working with the press. With so much of Bimota’s business being outsourced to the Belgian racing firm, one has to wonder what duties are left for the brand’s Italian base.

If you’re like us, you’re still buzzing over this weekend’s Superprestigio flat track event. Flat track racing is always a great spectacle, but as the name of the site suggests, it’s not something that comes across our radar too often. However, put together a competition amongst some of the best GP and SBK riders in the world, and you have our attention.

While the spotlight this time around was on American Brad “The Bullet” Baker (the current Grand National Champion) and his showdown with MotoGP Champion Marc Marquez (who organized the Superprestigio event), it was easy to forget that another American was a top contender: Kenny Noyes.

A former Moto2 racer, Noyes has perhaps spent too much time in Spain to be recognizable to some American fans, but the young and talented rider not only has some impressive GP results to his name, but he also currently runs the Noyes Camp, a dirt track school at the Motorland Aragon facility.

Finishing third in the Super Final at the Superprestigio event, Noyes brings us some on-track footage from the two-wheeled melee. If you think rubbing is racing, we think you will enjoy this video.

After rating the top ten finishers in the championship, it is time to turn our gaze to those outside the top ten worthy of note. Below is a look at the seasons of Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone, in the news in 2013 for very different reasons.

Aleix Espargaro – Championship Position: 11th – Rating: 8/10

Aleix Espargaro became the poster boy for the CRT class in 2012, beating out his teammate Randy De Puniet. The two Aspar riders showed that even with less than a year of development, a slightly modified Superbike could compete with the slower of the satellite prototypes. 2013 saw the Aprilia ART take another step forward, but it was a step only Espargaro could follow, De Puniet complaining of a lack of feeling all year, his performance plummeting.

Espargaro shone in 2013, regularly making it into Q2 under the new two-part qualification system, and even starting from the second row at the Sachsenring and Misano.

The race was always a different matter, the underpowered Aprilia no match for the prototypes, and even after the great start he got in German, running in the top three in the first few laps, Espargaro dropped back through the field as the race progressed.

Despite his disadvantages, he still bagged a bunch of top tens, consistently finishing ahead of the Ducatis. Espargaro demonstrated that the rider is still a key part of the equation in motorcycle racing.

On the heels of its August 2013 recall for faulty brake caliper mounting bolts, Zero has announced yet another recall for its electric motorcycles, this time one involving  several 2012-2013 models.

In December of last year, Zero Motorcycles released a statement announcing that they intended to recall 667 motorcycles due to faulty firmware that may cause the bike to lose power while running, potentially resulting in a crash.

According to Zero, “the subject motorcycles have a controller firmware that may react to infrequently encountered signal faults.” In layman’s terms, the signal to the motor controller may drift over the course of extended use of the bike, causing the motor to shut down sporadically.

It was a move which had been rumored since the middle of last year, but today, Ducati finally confirmed that Davide Tardozzi will return to the Italian factory to manage the MotoGP team.

Tardozzi has a long and successful career with Ducati in World Superbikes, before leaving to run the BMW World Superbike program. After BMW pulled its factory program, Tardozzi was left sitting at home, leading to widespread speculation of a Ducati return.

Tardozzi’s signing reunites several key players from the most successful period in Ducati’s past, with Tardozzi working alongside Paolo Ciabatti. Tardozzi will be taking over the role vacated by Vitto Guareschi, who left to run the Team Sky VR46 Moto3 squad.

Stage Seven saw the riders of the 2014 Dakar Rally back in the saddle, after having Saturday off as their lone rest day. If the riders thought their re-entry was going to be easy, they were wrong, as Stage Seven marks the first part of another marathon stage — a stage where only the riders can service and repair their machines after the stage’s end. Today also marks the first time that The Dakar has been held in Bolivia, the 28th country to host the iconic race.

First out of the gate, Alain Duclos suffered a navigation error, and lost nearly 20 minutes on the course finding the right route. The mistake cost the Sherco rider his third overall position, as he falls to fourth overall, behind KTM’s Jordi Viladoms.

Halfway through the Dakar Rally now, and Marc Coma has a good cushion over the rest of the field. His advantage isn’t insurmountable though, and today Joan Barreda took his first chip at his fellow countryman’s lead. The HRC rider stole four minutes from his KTM counterpart, with Barreda now 38 minutes back from Coma overall. The deficit isn’t enough to concern Coma yet, but if Barreda can keep up the pressure he might stand a chance for the overall win.

Cyril Despres also had a productive day, as the Frenchman finished third on the stage. This moved him into tenth overall, and while Despres’ bid for the 2014 Dakar Rally is surely done (it would seem the Yamaha PR team has already packed things up, as their site hasn’t updated since their disastrous Stage Five), Despres’ first term on the Yamaha YZ450F Rally could still see him finish in the Top 5. Undoubtedly, a strong pace over the remaining stages on helps build his campaign for the 2015 rally raid.

Did you miss yesterday’s Superprestigio dirt track races? Did you miss Brad “The Bullet” Baker put the smack down on Marc Marquez? Did you miss a venerable list of some of the best road racers in the world mixing it up on the dirt during their off-season? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Thankfully the promoters of the Superprestigio event, DTX Barcelona, really get this whole internet thing. Not only did they make sure the races were live on Spanish TV, but they made a live stream available so those outside of the region could see the event on Saturday.

Thanks to an intrepid motorsport enthusiast, now we have the entire day’s event on YouTube, just in case you had something too important to do on Saturday than to watch the race. Enjoy a short video with just the final race and another video with the whole day’s event as well.

After 15 years of making unique Ducati street bikes, Radical Ducati has announced the closing of its doors. The Spanish firm has made a name for itself by building custom Ducatis from various pieces of the Ducati parts bin, but now Pepo and Reyes are off for new adventures. We will miss their unique flare for design, but wish the folks at Radical Ducati all the best in their future endeavors.

Brad Baker walked away as winner of the Superprestigio flat track race at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on Saturday night. After a hectic evening’s racing in front of a wildly enthusiastic crowd, Baker shook off a challenge from Marc Marquez to take a comfortable win, adding the Superprestigio final win to the win in his Open category.

The event saw riders compete in two categories, the Open class, containing the cream of European flat track racers – still an almost entirely amateur sport – and AMA Grand National champion Brad ‘The Bullet’ Baker, and the Superprestigio class, consisting of current and former Grand Prix and World Supersport riders.

Baker blasted through his heats with ease, winning the Open final almost completely unchallenged, and qualifying for the Superfinal, between the top four in the Open class and the top four from the Superprestigio class.

Marc Marquez had dominated most of the Superprestigio races, the four-race final format allowing the 2013 MotoGP champion to make a couple of mistakes along the way. He ended up winning the Superprestigio final, passing into the Superfinal with Tito Rabat, Kenny Noyes and Aleix Espargaro.

The Superfinal had been billed from the beginning as a battle between Marc Marquez and AMA Grand National Champion Brad Baker, and that is exactly what ensued.

The contrasting styles of the two men made for a fascinating duel, but the more ragged style of Marquez meant that in the end, he came off worst. Marquez leaned on Baker as he passed underneath, and Marquez found himself crashing out.

In the final chapter of our series running down the top ten finishers of the 2013 MotoGP season, we come to Bradley Smith. Here’s a look at how his first year in the premier class went. To read the rest of our reviews of last year, you can read part 1, Marc Marquezpart 2, Jorge Lorenzopart 3, Dani Pedrosapart 4, Valentino Rossipart 5, Cal Crutchlowpart 6, Alvaro Bautistapart 7, Stefan Bradlpart 8, Andrea Dovizioso; and part 9, Nicky Hayden.

Pity poor Bradley Smith. The young Englishman came in to MotoGP as a rookie, and did exactly what he was supposed to do: learn slowly, not crash too much, see his times and results improve gradually throughout the season. In any other year, Smith would have received quiet praise for the steady job he did.

But this was not any other year. This was the year that Marc Marquez moved up to MotoGP, destroying records and utterly redefining what is expected of a rookie. While Smith was steadily improving to go from finishing in the top ten to ending in the top six, Marquez was amassing podiums, wins, and well on his way to taking the title at the first attempt.

Smith found himself being compared to the phenomenon that was Marquez, rather than the more realistic comparison with the rookie seasons of other MotoGP riders.

Take Marquez out of the equation – an almost impossible exercise, admittedly – and Smith looks a lot better. Map Smith’s season against that of Stefan Bradl in 2012, and the Englishman’s performance looks much better. Smith finished his year with 116 points, while Bradl took 135 in his first year.

At the time of this writing, racers in the 2014 Dakar Rally are now officially halfway through their ordeal, but before they could lay claim to their rest day on Saturday, they first had to contend with the 400 km of Stage Six. Thankfully temperatures weren’t as hot as they were on Thursday, but that did not make the day any easier.

It was a good outing for Sherco, as another of its riders took the top honor’s for the day, this time it was Alain Duclos who finished first for Sherco; which helped the French rider move into third overall in the standings, and bring some publicity for the small French/Spanish brand.

His movement in the rankings was also helped by the withdrawal of Chaleco Lopez, as the factory KTM rider wreaked his bike, and injured himself in the process. In contention for a podium in this year’s Dakar, his presence will be missed at the front, though he is not the only top contender absent in the rankings, as its seems impossible for Cyril Despres to overcome his mistakes on Stage Four and Stage Five.

Trailing Duclos by one minute on Stage Six, Marc Coma solidified his top spot in the overall rankings, and now leads HRC’s Juan Barreda by over 42 minutes. Not an insurmountable lead for Barreda to overcome, but the Spaniard on his Honda will have his work cutout for him if he wants to bet his fellow countryman and KTM’s well established game plan.

Riders will take Saturday off, as it is their rest day, and while the day will be a much welcomed reprieve, we are sure many will have their thoughts on Eric Palante, whose body was found today on the Stage Five course. No word yet on his cause of death, but with the 100 degree whether yesterdat, heat likely played a factor.