As the paddock packed up after the Jerez test on Monday, held after the Spanish GP at the circuit, the bombshell news emerged that Suzuki is to withdraw from MotoGP at the end of the current season.
Motorsport.com‘s Oriol Puigdemont was the first to break the news, which I have since had confirmed by multiple sources in the MotoGP paddock.
The team was told on Monday morning, before the test, with an official announcement expected on Tuesday.
Despite the fact that almost the entire MotoGP grid started the year without a contract for 2023 and beyond, it has been extremely quiet on the contract front so far this year.
The only new contract announced was the unsurprising news that Pecco Bagnaia is to stay in the factory Ducati team for the next two seasons, with that contract announced between the Mandalika test and the season opener at Qatar.
The general feeling seems to be one of wanting to wait and see. An informal poll of team managers at the Sepang test suggest that they expected to wait until Mugello at the earliest to start thinking about next year.
At the moment, it seems likely that major moves will not be made until after the summer break.
The KTM 790 Duke is coming back as a 2022 model year machine, so says the Austrian brand. That might come as a bit of surprise, since the KTM 890 Duke R replaced its smaller sibling in late-2019.
This curious move seems to come for the benefit of the European market, where a 95hp version of the KTM 790 Duke will be made available for A2 license holders, with a price tag of €8,999.
The rest of the world’s markets will get the 2022 KTM 790 Duke with its full pop of 105hp, though it’s not clear if the 790 will come to North American soil.
Episode 265 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one sees us gearing up for the start of the 2022 MotoGP Championship season.
To get us ready for the weekend’s season-opener, we have the usual crew of Steve English, David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Adam Wheeler on the mics, as they look at their picks not only for the Qatar GP, but also the 2022 season as a whole.
In 2021, the Yamaha M1 was the fastest motorcycle around a grand prix race track.
The evidence for that is clear: 2021 MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo. Quartararo had five race victories, more than anyone else, and five race fastest laps. He also had five pole positions, one less than Pecco Bagnaia.
So the bike was good, despite the chaos elsewhere making it look otherwise. Quartararo was the only constant in 2021.
After just a year of sales, the Ducati Multistrada V4 is getting a modest update for the 2022 model year, with the headline feature being an semi-automatic suspension lowering system.
The concept mimics the one first seen on the Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 adventure bike, where the preload on the forks and rear shock is reduced at stops and low-speeds in order to help the rider have a firm contact with the ground.
This “Minimum Preload” feature is coming on all 2022 Ducati Multistrada V4 S models, and those with a 2021 bike in their garage can get a software update for free from Ducati.
Suzuki’s quest for a team manager is at an end. After a year of searching for a replacement for Davide Brivio, who left MotoGP to join the Alpine F1 team at the end of 2020, Suzuki has finally announced the hiring of Livio Suppo to run the MotoGP team.
Suppo is a very experienced team manager, having set up Ducati’s MotoGP team when they first entered the class back in 2003, and having run the Repsol Honda squad after leaving Ducati at the end of 2009.
KTM’s surprise debut of two new 890 Duke models has been quite the letdown, as today we get our first glimpse of the 2022 KTM 890 Duke GP.
What does the KTM 890 Duke GP come with to earn those extra two letters at the end of its name? Some orange paint.
We’re not quite sure that “bold new graphics” warrant a separate model designation in KTM’s lineup, especially when the KTM 890 Duke R is becoming a popular track tool and race bike, and could use some kit for that purpose, but here we are.
What did we learn from the Mandalika test? First of all, we learned that building a circuit is hard, and every aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored. Because using the wrong stones in the aggregate for the asphalt can mean you have to resurface the track just a few weeks before the race is due to be held.
Despite the state of the asphalt, once the track cleaned up – something the riders had to be bullied into to doing, even though it was for their own good – the riders put in a lot of laps, the reward for effort going to Takaaki Nakagami, who racked up a grand total of 91 laps on the final day, or over 390km.
The first of Ducati’s second unveiling of 2022 motorcycles was today, and to kick things off, the Italian brand has a special XDiavel for us.
The Ducati XDiavel Nero is a limited and numbered edition of the performance cruiser, and its biggest feature is a custom seat, developed by the renowned leatherworkers at Poltrona Frau.
Only 500 units of this unique Ducati XDiavel will be made available for the public, with five different leather seat color options, which bring with them a $4,200 price increase over the regular XDiavel S model.
On the coattails of the success seen by Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” series, which follows the car world’s Formula One World Championship, MotoGP has finally decide to allow a series of its own.
Titled “MotoGP Unlimited” and produced by The Mediapro Studio, the eight-episode docuseries will be streamed on the Amazon Prime service (and also available on MotoGP.com for its subscribers).
This premiere series will follow the 2021 MotoGP World Championship, and aims to cover the stories behind the races.