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MotoGP Sepang Test – Day 5: Hat-Trick for Pedrosa

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The first test of the 2013 MotoGP season is completed, and Dani Pedrosa has completed a clean sweep, topping the timesheets on all three days. The Repsol Honda man confirmed his role as title favorite by posting a fast lap under the existing pole record set by Jorge Lorenzo last year.

He also opened-up a serious gap to the trio who have been chasing him all test long, putting nearly a third of a second on Jorge Lorenzo, the Yamaha man falling just short of his own pole record. However, what may worry Lorenzo more is the fact that Pedrosa declared at the end of the day that his objective was not to be fastest, but test the bike.

Valentino Rossi closed the gap to his teammate, ending the test a tenth from the time set by Lorenzo, though still four tenths from Pedrosa’s best lap. Rossi also leapfrogged over Marc Marquez, finally finishing ahead of the Repsol Honda rookie after ending the first two days behind him. Marquez finished as 4th fastest, six tenths behind Pedrosa, and the young Spaniard also had his first crash of the season, losing the front end on the way into the final corner. Marquez walked away unhurt, his Repsol RC213V did not fare quite so well.

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MotoGP Sepang Test – Day 4: Quid Pro Status Quo

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Dani Pedrosa topped the timesheets once again on the second day of prototype testing at Sepang, the Repsol Honda man getting off to a flying start and cracking into the 2’00s early in the session. He was joined there by Jorge Lorenzo, the Factory Yamaha rider once again shadowing Pedrosa, ending the day just two hundredths behind the Repsol rider.

Marc Marquez confirmed his first day times were no fluke, the only other man to post a lap in the 2’00s, though the rookie was a quarter of a second slower than his teammate on Wednesday, losing a fraction of the ground.

Valentino Rossi once again took 4th spot, the Italian still just under half a second off the two title favorites. The Honda men continued to work on engine durability, while Yamaha riders Lorenzo and Rossi had new engines with more acceleration to test, and a new chassis aimed at curing the pumping from the rear wheel of the bike.

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MotoGP Sepang Test – Day 3: Enter the Factory Prototypes

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Dani Pedrosa has ended the first full-day of MotoGP factory prototype testing at Sepang at the top of the timesheets. The Repsol Honda man was fast throughout the day, finally setting a time that would not be beaten with an hour left of the test.

Though Pedrosa’s best time could not be bested, it was challenged, Jorge Lorenzo using the final minutes of the session to post his fastest lap of the day, falling just eight thousandths short of Pedrosa, but still right on the pace.

The most impressive performance of the day goes to Marc Marquez though, who was fast out of the box, led the session at one point and finished the day less than five hundredths of a second behind his teammate. Marquez had been expected to make a strong start, and be within a few tenths of Pedrosa and Lorenzo, but getting within a few hundredths can be classed as exceptional.

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Seeking Alpha – On Ignite’s MotoGP Sponsorship

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Ignite Asset Management is a new name in the MotoGP paddock’s lexicon, as well as the new sponsor of Ducati’s “junior” team. While each year sponsors come and go, Ignite is a bit different from the usual batch of names plastered on the side of a GP bike, and the investment firm is getting some interesting play in the otherwise unassuming motorcycle world.

If you are not sure what an “alternative asset management” investing firm happens to be, then the American company’s self-description as a “management firm led by a group of hedge fund industry veterans and supported by private investors that are driven by the undiscovered alpha” is going to really leave you really wondering what slicks-back the hair on these Wall Street types.

Boiled down to its essence, an alpha represents the ratio of an investments and measure how sizable a return was in relation to measured risk. A positive alpha coefficient signals that an investment was good not only in its return, but also in its risk management. Investors are always talking about “seeking alpha” and here Ignite is touting its professional ability of finding the diamond in the rough — standard Wall Street Napoleon Complex stuff.

So then, how does a company like Ignite Asset Management enter into a sport where the running joke about how to make $10 million dollars is to start with $100 million?

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Ben Spies and His Pramac Ducati Livery

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Along with the unveiling of the Ducati Corse factory team, Ben Spies, Andrea Iannone, and the rest of the Pramac Ducati team were on hand at the 2013 Wrooom event to unveil their factory-supported hardware. Continuing the close relationship between Ducati Corse and Pramac Team Principal Paolo Campinoti, the Pramac Ducati squad will help Ducati develop the Desmosidici race bike during the 2013 MotoGP season.

Though the logos may be sparse, Pramac Ducati sees the addition of Ignite Asset Management to the team’s livery, a New York-based asset management firm. Moving from the factory Yamaha team to the Ducati “junior” squad, Spies will be joined by Moto2 star Iannone, who captivated fans last year with his aggressive riding style and back-end cornering procedures.

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Bikes

First Shots of the Ducati Desmosedici GP13

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Ahh, now here is the genuine article. Relatively unchanged from the bikes raced at the Valencian GP, the Ducati Desmosedici GP13 has finally broken cover at the 2013 Wrooom event. Shown here we see the Ducati Corse bikes of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso, which will race alongside the similarly-spec’d machines of Ben Spies and Andrea Iannone in the Pramac Ducati “junior” team.

Unveiled just moments ago on the mountain’s summit, we’re still waiting for Ducati Corse to drop the hi-res version of these photos in our mailbox, so more details and snaps as we get them. In the meantime, notice how the shots after the jump aren’t nearly as creepy as the ones released by Yamaha earlier this morning.

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Wednesday Summary at Valencia: Of the Futility of Chasing the Weather, & Fast Debuts

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Tuesday afternoon at Valencia saw groups of people huddled together up and down the paddock discussing what to do. With the weather having made the first day of testing difficult, and much, much worse forecast for Wednesday – half an inch or more of rain was forecast to fall during the seven hours of the test on Wednesday – several teams contemplated the prospect of packing up and heading elsewhere in search of a dry track.

In the end only Yamaha decided to go, heading off to Aragon, one of their nominated test tracks. In their wake, a string of journalists followed, hoping to get more of an idea of just how fast Valentino Rossi still is after his misadventure with Ducati, by being able to compare his times with those of Jorge Lorenzo’s. It turned out to be a waste of time. The rain fell in Aragon, Valentino Rossi did a single lap – out, and then straight back into the pits – and Jorge Lorenzo posted nine laps in the wet before crashing, and walking away unhurt.

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Valencia MotoGP Test Preview: Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Ducati, & The Future

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The sense of expectation in the air at Valencia is wound so tight it hums. Tomorrow morning, some time after 10am, some of that expectation will start to dissipate as we get the first glimpses of answers that have preoccupied MotoGP fans for the past few months.

Two things we hope to see: a glimpse of the past and a glimpse of the future. After two long, hard years, the army of Valentino Rossi fans will be hoping to see something they haven’t since 2010, or maybe even 2009: a flowing, comfortable, aggressive Valentino Rossi at one with the machine underneath.

That was something he never showed while riding the Ducati, the figure in the Rossi replica helmet sitting on the Ducati always looking more like a club racer had sneaked into the back of the Ducati garage to take the bike out for a spin, terrifying himself in the process. Rossi looked stiff, awkward, uncomfortable, his back arched like a cat negotiating a dog-infested yard.

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Trackside Tuesday: What Lies Ahead

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With all three world titles settled as we head to Valencia, some find their attention more focussed on the test that follows the season’s final round, rather than on who will win any of the weekend’s three races.

Certainly Rossi’s future reunited with Yamaha and Jorge Lorenzo as teammate is a subject of great interest, as is Marc Marquez on a factory Honda. But also there’s the future of Ducati to ponder, as a returning Nicky Hayden is joined by Andrea Dovizioso, while Ben Spies and Andrea Iannone join up to ride for the factory’s junior team.

Here are four gifted riders with several world championships between them. But as good as they are, none of them is Casey Stoner. And none of them has the financial backing of Valentino Rossi, who was able to ask for major changes to the GP11 and GP12 designs, none of which resulted in a package that would allow Rossi to return to the front of the pack.

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Sunday Summary at Aragon: Of Bitter Rivalries, Exceptional Bravery, & Nicky Hayden’s Bizarre Crash

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After two days of miserable weather at Aragon, race day dawned dry, sunny, though still a little cool. Paddock regulars who had spent the last two days scurrying from pits to hospitality, seeking shelter from the rain, poured out into the paddock to catch the warmth of the sun, which they had just about given up on previously.

The blue skies brought out some great racing, at least in Moto3 and Moto2, as well as some fantastic displays of riding in MotoGP, though the excitement in the premier class was to be found in the battle for the final spot on the podium rather than in the fight for victory. But there were also a few signs of improvement in the near future.

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Interview: Filippo Preziosi Talks about Ducati’s Four Riders, Future Developments, & The Spec ECU Rule

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Ducati Corse director and Ducati’s engineering guru Filippo Preziosi was a busy man at Misano. Besides overseeing the race weekend at the circuit and preparing for the test on Monday, Preziosi spent a lot of time talking to a number of journalists. I was one of the lucky few who were offered ten minutes with Preziosi, and so I jumped at the chance.

In the interview, Preziosi covered a number of topics: the Ducati junior team strategy, Ducati’s four riders for 2013, the current and expected developments for next season were all among the subjects discussed. Preziosi also talked about the effect of the spec ECU, which will be introduced for 2014, and gave the impression he was not necessarily opposed to the idea. After the jump is what Preziosi had to say.

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