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October 2015

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The KTM RC16 has finally been spied testing, this time at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. For those who don’t remember, KTM is set to join the MotoGP paddock for the 2017 season, after announcing that it was working on a new V4 MotoGP platform that it will sell to the public for €140,000 (presumably slightly detuned).

The Austrian firm recently signed Mika Kallio as its test rider, though the photos here seem to be of Alex Hofmann. As a former MotoGP racer, Kallio’s input on the KTM RC16 will be of great benefit to the race team developers, although it appears there is already a muse for KTM’s inspiration.

Though there are substantial differences between the machines, a quick look of the KTM RC16 brings thoughts of the Honda RC213V – as much as we hate to make those kind of comparisons.

Valentino Rossi has lodged an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the penalty imposed upon him at Sepang for his role in the incident between Marc Marquez and himself.

Rossi has asked the CAS to issue a stay of the penalty, effectively suspending it until the full case can be heard before the court. A ruling on the stay is to be issued by November 6th.

Suzuki is making it no small secret that it plans to get in on the forced induction game in the two-wheeled space. The Japanese manufacturer first teased us with the turbocharged Recursion concept back in 2013, at the Tokyo Motor Show.

Since then there have been rumors that the Suzuki Recursion will go into production, and just a few months ago we spotted Suzuki trademarking the Recursion name in the US and European Union.

Now at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, Suzuki has a turbocharged engine on display, though little to say about it.

The Sepang Clash, as Dorna would like for us to refer to it, continues to send shockwaves down the sport; as videos emerge of altercations between entourages at the track, photos and messages of hate circulate around social media, and the latest entry with Repsol releasing a strongly worded press release that calls into question the future of the Spanish company’s involvement in MotoGP.

David has already written exhaustively about the events at the track, and we have little interest here at Asphalt & Rubber in fueling the fire that was started in Sepang. Needless to say, no one is winning in all of this, and the sport is clearly getting a black eye because of all these actions.

While hopefully cooler heads prevail, it’s clear that things are still hot and heavy in the MotoGP Championship. Addressing some of the more unsavory acts that have come as a result of the on-track action at the Malaysian GP, FIM President Vito Ippolito has penned an open letter to the various stakeholders in the world championship.

While he doesn’t speak to anyone by name, it is very clear who are the different parties that Ippolito is reprimanding. You can read his letter after the jump.

Alex De Angelis is home at last. After spending nearly two weeks in a hospital in Japan, recovering from serious injuries suffered in a big smash at Motegi, the Iodaracing rider was flown home on Sunday, where he received further treatment in the State Hospital of San Marino.

With the doctors happy that he was well enough to go home, De Angelis was discharged from hospital yesterday.

Given the severity of his injuries – fractured vertebrae, broken ribs, and a badly bruised lung – De Angelis faces a long rehabilitation process. He will have to wear a back brace for 45 days, undergo continuous medical checks and start physical rehabiliation to recover his fitness.

The doctors have ruled out a return to racing in the short term, but say that it may be possible for De Angelis to be fit for MotoGP testing in Sepang, at the start of February 2016.

Let’s face it, we knew this day would come. Technology has finally progressed to the point where our beloved past time of riding motorcycles can now be done by a robot. Sarah Connor was right. Skynet is coming. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.

As tinfoil hat as we can make this story, let’s be honest…it’s pretty cool that Yamaha is developing a humanoid robot that can ride a motorcycle. It’s sorta creepy, but it’s also really cool.

To help lighten the blow, Yamaha is playing off its “Motobot” with a little bit of humor, having the machine taunt factory MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi, and suggesting that one day the robot will beat the ten-time nine-time World Champion at what he does best.

That’s fun and all, and it certainly grabs headlines, but the Yamaha Motobot is a really big deal for a lot more reasons that are less obvious than what has been put forth. Let me explain.

Yamaha Motor Corporation is known better for its powersports offerings, but what if the tuning fork brand followed Suzuki and Honda down the rabbit hole of also making a automobiles?

Yamaha might just be considering such a path, releasing what it calls the Sports Ride concept at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.

The two-seater concept is very sporty, and Yamaha is quoting a 750kg weight…that’s roughly 1,600 lbs. While we are well into Lotus territory, there is no information at this time as to what could be powering the Sports Ride concept (if it even exists outside of computer renderings).

When we first saw the Kawasaki Ninja H2 and Kawasaki Ninja H2R motorcycles debut, we knew this wouldn’t be the last of the forced-induction machines from Team Green, and Kawasaki is now giving us our first glimpse at its next supercharged model.

Debuting the Kawasaki SC-01 “Spirit Charger” concept at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, we suspect Kawasaki is teasing us our first glimpse of the rumored “S2” motorcycle, which is expected to be a 650cc engine mated to Kawasaki’s special supercharger design.

As expected, Yamaha has a leaning multi-wheel concept at the Tokyo Motor Show for us to chew on. Without further ado, let us introduce to you the Yamaha MWT-9 leaning trike concept.

The key to understanding the MWT-9 is the number three. Three wheels to grip the road, three cylinders to power the engine, and three Predator movies to get the aesthetic jussssst right. Three groups of three makes nine, and blammo, you have the MWT-9.

In seriousness though, there is a lot to take in with the Yamaha MWT-9, once you get past its alien/insect/whatever-that-is look.

The first images are starting to emerge from the Tokyo Motor Show, and already we have some excitement. Naturally one of the items we are most keen to learn more about is the Honda “Light Weight Super Sports” concept, which many are saying is a pre-cursor to a Honda CBR250RR successor.

A product from the glory days of small-displacement warfare, the Honda CBR250RR was a screamer of a machine, even by today’s standards, and the CBR250RR made big horsepower from its quarter-liter engine.

While the Honda “Light Weight Super Sports” concept may not rev into the stratosphere like the CBR250RR did, reports show that the LCD dash does indicate a 14,000 rpm redline – significantly higher than the CBR250R/CBR300R.

Reports also show that the concept has a parallel-twin engine, confirming our suspicions. All indications point to Honda producing the small-displacement sport bike, though many questions about it remain.

Things are about to kick-off in Japan, with the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, and we expect to see some interesting things from the Japanese OEMs there…finally.

One of those items of interest is Kawasaki’s next supercharged motorcycle, widely expected to be the Kawasaki Ninja S2 – a 650cc machine with liter-class horsepower figures.

The above is certainly not what we expect the Kawasaki S2 to look like, though it might not be too far off the mark.