Dani Pedrosa claimed pole position for tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
Marc Marquez returns to his pit box during during Q2. He will start from 2nd place for tomorrow’s race.
Valentino Rossi completes the front row. Much to the delight of the members of the Valentino Rossi fan club in the main grandstand.
After the raft of accusations he had made on Thursday, Valentino Rossi decided to keep his council on Friday. When asked by the English speaking press about the responses of Marc Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo to his charges, Rossi cut them short.
“I said everything yesterday, and I don’t have anything else to say.” To the Italian press, he was a little more expansive, but still insisted that he had had his say.
When told that Márquez had said he had been surprised by the accusations Rossi had laid against him, Rossi rejected the suggestion. “Marc said he was surprised? I don’t think that’s true. And now, I have said everything, I have nothing left to say.”
As it turned out, he did have a little more to say, but it was short. When told that Márquez has said that all Rossi needs to do is finish ahead of or directly behind Lorenzo at the next two races, Rossi had a cutting response. “Tell him I already know that.”
Did he think that he would be safer on track with Márquez, now that he had had his say? “I don’t know. I took a risk, but I could not remain quiet. Maybe my words will have a positive effect, maybe negative, but at least I can sleep well at night now.”
The accusations made by Rossi on Thursday had left the paddock mystified, struggling to work out exactly what he had hoped to achieve. “After some hours, I’m still surprised, like everybody,” Marc Márquez said.
“I respect Valentino and I will always respect him, but I understand also his situation. That he is fighting for the title, he is really close to getting his tenth title, but he knows Jorge is really strong.” Márquez said he had no desire to be involved. “In the end, he needs to beat Jorge on the racetrack. I prefer to be out of this battle.”
Here’s a little clickbait for your Friday consumption, though we think you will enjoy it ultimately. For the 2016 model year, the Kawasaki Ninja H2 will be getting the “bold new graphics” treatment, with a blacked-out paint job that Kawasaki calls “Mirror Coated Spark Black”.
It doesn’t seem any other changes will come to the supercharged H2 street bike, though let’s be honest…how do you improve upon a supercharged hyperbike like the H2 in the first place? It might not be as svelte as the latest crop of superbikes, but we’re told that black is slimming so…
Dani Pedrosa was 2nd fastest today at Sepang.
Jorge Lorenzo ended Day 1 with the fastest time, but he was only 0.047 secondss faster than Dani Pedrosa in 2nd place.
Marc Marquez completed the provisional front row.
We have been hearing rumors of a smaller displacement Ducati Scrambler since the 803cc machine dropped on us last year. The rumors have varied in detail, with some quoting a v-twin engine, and others saying Ducati might finally bring back a single-cylinder engine to its lineup.
The displacement figure has also varied, with sizes quoted between 300cc and 600cc. In fact, only two things have been constant in the rumors we have heard: that Ducati is working on a smaller Scrambler, and that it would be cheaper than the current $8,500 Scrambler Icon, thus creating a better entry point into the Italian brand.
All of that has been too vague to publish, but there seems to be some clarity now on the new model, with a Ducati Scrambler 400 widely expected to debut in a month’s time in Milan.
The long-awaited Episode 5 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is now up for your listening pleasure. Apologies for it taking so long, but I had to celebrate another rotation around the sun, which sort of got in the way of editing the show this past weekend.
We think you’ll find this episode worth the wait though, and I personally think it’s our best show yet (there’s only five of them though, so I guess that statement has a fairly low bar to beat).
In the show we talk about the Yamaha R1S, the new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, Nicky Hayden going to World Superbike, riding the Aprilia RSV4 RR, and trying out the new Icon Airframe Pro Carbon helmet.
You can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Cheers!
The pre-event press conferences held on the Thursday ahead of each MotoGP round can vary a good deal in interest. For the most part, they are full of pleasantries and platitudes, both riders and journalists doing their best to look interested and not to start playing with their phones.
After the utterly entrancing race at Phillip Island four days ago, we expected this to be one of the less interesting ones, the only mild interest being the dismal air quality in Malaysia.
How very wrong we were. Yes, there was the discussion of the obvious, of how the championship chances of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, and of Danny Kent in Moto3 would play out.
But there was also an explosion of interest once Rossi made accusations that Marc Márquez was trying to help Lorenzo win the championship, accusations he pressed home further once the press conference finished.
It first livened up once Andrea Iannone and Valentino Rossi were asked what they thought of the abuse that had been plastered all over the Facebook and Instagram feeds of Iannone after the race at Phillip Island, where Iannone finished ahead of Rossi and took valuable points in the championship.
Iannone shook it off, saying that 90% were positive, and the rest were “just an opinion.”
Rossi was much stronger in his condemnation of the behavior of people calling themselves his fans. “I think that in reality they are not my real supporters,” he said.
“Is a great shame, because these people are very stupid. Unfortunately, this is the time of the social network where everybody can say his idea, even if it’s a very stupid idea. The people like to speak bad about other guys that are more lucky than them, with more talent, and more happy, because they do with their life what they want.”
Rossi pointed out that he held no grudge against Iannone for beating him. “He just did his race, and is normal that he try to beat me.”
Mika Kallio is to be KTM’s test rider to help with the development of the company’s MotoGP bike. The 32-year-old Finnish rider is to make a return to the Austrian manufacturer and work to get the KTM RC16 ready for its debut season in MotoGP in 2017.
Kallio has a long association with the Austrian marque. He rode for them for four seasons both in 125s and 250s, finishing as runner up twice in the junior class, most controversially in 2005, when he lost out to Tom Luthi by five points after his erstwhile KTM teammate Gabor Talmasci stole the win from him at Qatar.
For 2016, we know that Honda will bring its big “adventure-tourer” the US market, known to Europeans as the Honda Crosstourer, and introduced to Americans as the Honda VFR1200X. For the 2016 model year, the Crosstourer gets some minor updates, as does its 700cc sibling the Honda NC700X.
So if you’re keeping score, that leaves one more machine to get a modest update for 2016…yup, Honda CB500X, we are talking about you!
A Goldilocks-busting lineup of street-focused ADV machines, the 2016 Honda CB500X rounds out Honda’s lineup with a lightweight and nimble machine that is also good for the A2 licensing countries.
Modesty might be the name of the game so far for Honda’s 2016 lineup, as Big Red announces its lesser models for next year, ahead of the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, where we expect to see some interesting machines.
One of those models getting a modest refresh for the upcoming model year is the Honda NC700X, Honda’s other road-hobbled adventure-touring machine. The big change for 2016 will be “exciting new styling”, though other changes are afoot as well.