Suzuki’s return to the MotoGP Championship continues to gain steam, as the Japanese company has submitted a request to Dorna…
The fourth time is a charm, as Dorna has released a revised version of the 2013 MotoGP Championship calendar today.…
Valentino Rossi’s amazing run of nine world titles was aided, in some part, by the level of those whom he had to fight for wins. With all credit given to Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau, his two main rivals until the modern class of “aliens” arrived in MotoGP, neither of these two riders was on the same level as Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, and Jorge Lorenzo. My colleague David Emmett has commented several times that these three riders came up through their development years knowing that to win they would have to beat Rossi. They alone managed to elevate their skills to a level that could challenge him over the course of a season, where as Biaggi and Gibernau, as good as they were, could not manage the same growth as mature riders.
It is no secret that Ducati had high hopes for the Ducati 1199 Panigale when it debuted the machine at the 2011 EICMA motorcycle show, and the Italian superbike certainly has proven itself to be popular with new motorcycle buyers in 2012. Selling 7,500 units worldwide so far this year, the Panigale is one of Ducati’s best selling motorcycles ever, and accounts for roughly 17% of the Italian company’s sales for this year (2012 being Ducati’s best sales year ever). We don’t have the breakout numbers to know how the Ducati 1199 Panigale sold in North America this year, compared to other markets, but we suspect more than a few of the machines landed in the USA.
After several years of steady deterioration, the surface at Phillip Island is about to get fixed. According to reports from Australia,…
If there is an “on-the-fence” model from the EICMA motorcycle show, it is the MV Agusta Rivale. Highly anticipated ahead of the show in Milan, the Rivale debuted to mixed reactions regarding its design, giving the small Italian company perhaps its first ugly duckling moment in modern history. We’re still on the fence though. On paper, the MV Agusta Rivale 800 strikes all the right nerves. Its 798cc three-cylinder motor puts out 123hp, while its heft sums to 375 lbs. Coming with the Varese company’s MVICS electronics package and a €10,990 price tag, perhaps the only thing on the spec sheet that we don’t like about the Rivale is its “second-half of 2013” availability date, which could easily become “early 2014” if the MV Agusta F3’s arrival teaches us anything.