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Casey Stoner: I Miss Racing, But Not Enough To Return

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Casey Stoner will not be returning to MotoGP any time soon. In an interview with the Italian magazine Vogue, Stoner said that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and experience life outside the paddock.

There have been a constant stream of rumors that Stoner could return to MotoGP almost since the day the Australian hung up his helmet. They have grown in intensity at several points in time, most notably when Honda announced that Stoner would be working for HRC as a test rider in 2013.

HRC Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto has made no secret that Honda would welcome the prodigal Australian back with open arms, and credible sources in Spain have reported that much work has been done to make a comeback possible, and to try to persuade Stoner to make a return.

News that Stoner was to attend the Austin round of MotoGP reignited a firestorm of further speculation that he could stage a comeback at some point in the future.

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Lifestyle

Reliving Rossi’s Corkscrew Pass on Stoner…with Paper

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Got some time to waste? We have just the thing for you, thanks to our friends at Yamaha. The tuning fork brand has long made papercraft models of its various products — scale models made only out of paper, and not to be confused with origami —  and the different designs have been swirling on the internet for as long as we can remember.

Available for download are patterns for building a range of motorcycles, like the Yamaha MT-01, Yamaha YZF-R1, and Yamaha VMAX, and while Yamaha provides the blueprints, you must supply the sheets of paper, bottles of glue, and buckets of patience — this not an undertaking for the ADD inclined.

Now in time for the new year, Yamaha has released perhaps the mother of all papercraft projects, a diorama of Valentino Rossi’s Corkscrew pass on Casey Stoner at Laguna Seca.

It took papercraft designer Mr. Mukouyama a year to design and create the kit, and the detail shows. Getting a chance to show his masterpiece to The Doctor himself, who praised Mukouyama-san’s hardwork, the young artist will have a hard time topping this.

Whether you are riding out the Northeast’s current Freezepocalypse, or just counting down the months until the racing season begins again, here is a new garage endeavor for your undertaking. If any A&R readers complete this papercraft diorama, you must send us some photos of it. We’ll send you a shirt or something.

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MotoGP

Casey Stoner Will Continue His Role as a Test Rider for HRC

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Casey Stoner is to continue as test rider for Honda in 2014. The Australian double world champion will once again take the track to help develop Honda’s RC213V during the 2014 season, according to British publication MCN.

Stoner took up his role as test rider in the middle of 2013, after HRC’s regular test rider Kousuke Akiyoshi broke his femur at a Japanese Superbike round. The Australian worked on the 2013 RC213V, as well as a rain-shortened test on Honda’s RCV1000R production racer.

According to the report on MCN, Stoner’s testing schedule for 2014 has yet to be fixed. It appears that Stoner will not be present at the special tire test put on by Bridgestone at Phillip Island, which all three factory teams will attend, but he will take on further testing duties at Motegi later in the season.

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MotoGP

The Lineage of Honda’s Grand Prix Motorcycles

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For the past twenty years or so, there is one manufacturer who has been above all others in the premier class of grand prix motorcycle racing, and that manufacturer is Honda.

Winning 12 of the last 20 World Championship titles, Honda’s recent domination in 500GP and MotoGP has been a sea change for the series, and the company’s winning total in this modern era of four-stroke and two-stroke machines is double the next nearest OEM, Yamaha (MV Agusta still holds the outright record, with 18 championships from the 1956-1974 period of four-stroke racing).

Part of Honda’s success has been the fact that the Japanese motorcycle manufacturer has been able to attract some of the best riders ever to come to a Grand Prix race’s starting line, champions like Mick Doohan (1994-1998), Àlex Crivillé (1999), Valentino Rossi (2001-2003), Nicky Hayden (2006), Casey Stoner (2011), and now Marc Marquez (2013).

But also part of the equation has been the superb equipment that HRC, Honda’s racing department, produces for its riders, bike likes the Honda NSR500, RC211v, RC212V, and RC213V, which have widely been regarded as the best machines on the grid in each of their respective eras.

Looking down the pipe, as MotoGP adopts new rules and regulations, the RC213V and RCV1000R appear set to dominate their respective classes as the factory machines will be reduced to 20 liters of fuel for next year, and the open class machines are forced to use both the Dorna-supplied ECU hardware and software.

It would appear that Honda has a firm grasp on the next few years of MotoGP racing, and as a bit of an homage to this company’s fantastic two-wheeled craftsmanship, along with the racers who rode them, we give you wallpaper-sized photos of Honda’s Grand Prix motorcycles, from the 1995 to 2013 seasons.

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MotoGP

Saturday Summary at Sepang: Rain Spices Up Qualifying

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If Saturday at Sepang taught us anything, it is that if the new qualifying system for MotoGP is exciting, the new qualifying system with a little rain mixed in is utterly breathtaking. A brief shower at the end of Q1 left the area through turns 6 and 7 very wet, while the rest of the track was still mostly dry.

Add in the searing tropical heat which dries the surface quickly, and the color of the Sepang tarmac which tends to disguise wet patches, and qualifying becomes even more tricky. And then there’s the fact that Sepang is a long track, the two-minute lap time leaving the riders precious little time to turn laps while waiting for the surface to dry out.

Strategies went out the window, and already stressed mechanics were forced to work themselves into even more of a sweat as they rushed to set up two bikes, one dry and one wet, just in case the rain returned. Some riders went out early and despite being warned, found themselves thrown out of their seats and given a proper scare.

With qualifying being just fifteen minutes, the most likely scenario was that the last rider to cross the line would be the fastest, unless it started raining again.

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MotoGP

MotoGP: Stefan Bradl Breaks Ankle – Out for Malaysian GP

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Stefan Bradl has been forced to miss the Sepang round of MotoGP, after fracturing his ankle in a crash during FP4. The LCR Honda rider fell at Turn 1, sliding unhurt towards the gravel, but clipped his foot on the carpet on the outside of the kerb, which had been picked up by the handlebar of his Honda RC213V.

The impact was enough to fracture the right medial malleolus (the spur on the inside of the tibia visible as part of the ankle), ruling him out of action for Sunday’s race.

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MotoGP

26 Hi-Res Photos of Casey Stoner Testing the 2014 Honda RC213V & Honda RCV1000R Production Racer

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Here at Asphalt & Rubber, we miss Casey Stoner racing in the MotoGP Championship. That may not be the most popular opinion, especially with MotoGP fans, as the Australian never really warmed up to being in the spotlight, dealing with the prying questions of the press and demands of fans. Casey called things the way he saw it, and always strived for more on the track — and this ruffled many, as they viewed his words as complaints instead of his pursuit of perfection.

As critical of himself as he was of the machinery, tracks, and other riders, Stoner raced on a different level. There is an understanding of motorcycle racing dynamics in the two-time World Champion’s mind that few GP racers can match, and the proof of that is in Stoner’s results. It is this understanding the HRC hopes to tap into whenever they have they Aussie test a machine for them.

Taking to the Twin Ring Circuit in Motegi, for yet another test with Honda, Stoner rode back-to-back an early iteration of the 2014 Honda RC213V as well as the 2014 Honda RCV1000R “production racer” that non-MSMA teams will race next season. We have 26 high-resolution photos of Casey on these bikes after the jump, for your viewing pleasure.

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MotoGP

Casey Stoner Tests the Honda RCV1000R Production Racer

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While the 2013 MotoGP season has been favored with fair weather, Casey Stoner’s testing duties for Honda have been severely hindered by rain.

The previous test was a washout, and most of the last two days at Motegi were also badly affected by rain. However, the Australian managed to cram the better part of two days’ work into a single day on Thursday, riding both the 2014 RC213V and Honda’s production racer, the Honda RCV1000R.

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Racing

Friday Summary at Misano: Yamaha’s Seamless, Ducati’s New Exhaust, & Race Direction’s View of Rivas And Marquez

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So Yamaha have brought their seamless gearbox to Misano. Being of a mind not just to blindly believe what Yamaha say they are doing, I naturally spent all of MotoGP FP1 on pit wall, watching the bikes come out of the 2nd gear final corner, and recording the sound of the gear changes to measure the gaps and estimate the length of time spent changing gears.

Without even looking at the numbers, you could tell the difference: the gear changes of both Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi were audibly quicker, taking place without the usual bang of exploding fuel as the quickshifter cuts ignition.

The difference was clear even when they were riding on their own, but when Bradley Smith and Cal Crutchlow went past shortly afterwards, the difference between the factory and the satellite machines was stunning. Where a large gap and small explosion could be heard when the Tech 3 bikes changed gear, the factory machines sounded smooth, revs dropping but continuing to drive, well, seamlessly.

You didn’t even need to hear the noise: just watching the bikes come out of the final corner gave you enough visual clues to see the bikes were using the seamless gearbox. The factory Yamahas were smoother, with less wheelie, and no movement of the rear when the gears were changed. This was clearly a seamless transmission Yamaha were using.

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Racing

Preview of Misano: On Yamaha’s Seamless Gearbox, Marquez’s Misdemeanors & The Veto That Wasn’t

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Will they or won’t they? The “they”, of course, were Yamaha, and the question was whether Yamaha would start to use their seamless gearbox at Misano, something which riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo had been asking for a long time.

That the gearbox would be used at the test on Monday seemed obvious, but several publications – including both MCN and the Spanish website Motocuatro – predicted that Yamaha’s seamless transmission would be raced at Misano.

They were right. In the press conference on Thursday, Jorge Lorenzo was the first to break the news. “It will be here for the weekend,” he said, going on to clarify: “tomorrow.” Rossi was delighted, telling the press conference he was very happy that Yamaha had decided to start using the seamless transmission, as it could help them in their fight against Honda.

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