Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam will return to the Pata Honda team for the 2014 World Superbike season. Both men have extended their contracts for one more season, giving the aging CBR1000RR what is expected to be its last season before a new bike makes an appearance.
The pairing has been plagued by injury this season, and despite increased support from HRC for 2013, the results have not been as the team had hoped.
Confirming one of the worst-kept secrets last weekend, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca has made an official statement that says that the coastal Californian track will not host the MotoGP Championship in 2014. The track cites the two other US rounds, and the circuit’s not-for-profit status as reasons why the US GP could not continue at Laguna Seca.
Boiling down the reasons we already laid out yesterday, the simple truth is that Laguna Seca was unable to meet the demands and needs of Dorna, nor was the circuit able to compete against the purpose-built Circuit of the Americas; as well as Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the motorsport capital of the world, which our sources say was “willing to do whatever it takes” circuit-wise to keep the premier-class of motorcycle racing at IMS.
To its credit, Laguna Seca hopes to return the MotoGP Championship to its facilities in the near future. We have heard talk of the California track alternating years on the MotoGP calendar, though it is too early to tell if that plan is what Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is referencing in its release.
The press release from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca can be found after the jump.
The 2013 Moto2 rider line up is proving to be rather fluid. The latest in a series of changes to the line up is the departure of Toni Elias from the Blusens Avintia Moto2 team, after a season of disappointing results: the 2010 Moto2 champion’s best finish this year was a 9th place at Jerez.
Elias is part of a chain reaction encompassing three different paddocks, and stretching into 2014. The catalyst was Michel Fabrizio, who is leaving his Red Devils Roma team in World Superbikes with immediate effect. Fabrizio has had a positively mediocre season so far, his only podium coming at the season opener at Phillip Island, a great disappointment as the Italian started as an outsider for the title.
After financial disagreements with the team, which arose at the Silverstone round of World Superbikes, according to GPOne.com, Fabrizio and the team decided to part ways before the season was over, rather than at the end.
Elias will now replace Fabrizio at the Red Devils Roma team for the final four rounds of the year, at Istanbul, Laguna Seca, Magny-Cours and Jerez, with an option to continue in 2014, should his debut be a success, according to Spanish website Motocuatro.com.
MotoGP’s worst-kept secret – the latest in a very, very long line of badly-kept secrets – is finally out. As had been widely reported, Gresini Honda finally confirmed that they have signed a two-year deal with Scott Redding to race in MotoGP.
Redding will race the now-named Honda RCV1000R production racer for the 2014 season, with the plan being that Redding will move up to ride the factory RC213V at Gresini the following year.
Despite the posturing ahead of this year’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, which seemed to suggest that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway would exercise an option to forgo hosting the 2014 MotoGP Championship, Dorna and IMS have come to an accord on keeping the Indianapolis GP for next season, with a date in mid-August still to be announced.
Keeping three American races on the calendar for at least the immediate future, IMS also announced that it was working with MotoGP on a “long-term future” to keep the premier class coming back to Indianapolis, which bodes well for the US keeping its dominant role in hosting the MotoGP Championship.
When it comes to turning the contract season into as arduous of a process as possible, the MotoGP Championship is king. The silly season seems to stretch from Qatar to Valencia, and we’re sure that if we checked at the time of this posting, we could find some intrigue for contracts in 2016. Oy vey.
That’s not how Guy Martin rolls though. If you didn’t know that the truck mechanic, and sometimes TT racer, beats to the sound of his own drum, well…then you probably didn’t know jack about the man from Lincolnshire to begin with.
It seems Martin is just starting to get wind of this whole internet thing, and found out that people were talking about him on it. This lead to his revelation that people were also talking about where he was racing for the 2014 season, and that just did not sit well with Mr. Martin.
Putting rumors to a dead-stop, Guy took matters into his own hands. Long story short, he’s with the TAS Suzuki boys (and girls) for next season, and believes he’ll be on the necessary package to find his elusive first Isle of Man TT race win.
If you don’t speak mouth-full-of-marbles, you might have to watch the video after the jump more than once — it might be the best contract announcement we’ve ever seen.
With Cal Crutchlow’s signing out of the way, a few more pieces of MotoGP’s 2014 puzzle are starting to fall into place. The next domino to fall was Stefan Bradl, the German having his contract at LCR Honda extended for the 2014 season as expected. Bradl wil now stay with the team for another season as a factory-supported rider, with direct backing from HRC.
The news that Cal Crutchlow has signed a two-year deal with Ducati led to howls of despair from MotoGP fans, especially among those in the UK. Why, they asked, would Crutchlow willingly leave the Tech 3 Yamaha team and the as-near-factory-as-possible M1 to take on the miserable task of taming the Ducati?
Why throw away another year on a bike which he knows he can score podiums, and perhaps even wins on, in exchange for riding a bike which has been a proven failure since Casey Stoner last climbed off it and headed next door to the Repsol Honda garage?
If Valentino Rossi, the biggest name and most politically powerful rider in motorcycle racing couldn’t make the bike competitive, what chance does Crutchlow stand?
Though only Crutchlow himself fully understands the motives behind his choice, he has left plenty of evidence offering some insight into why he has signed for Ducati. Though fans around the world have tried to point to a single reason – usually either money or having a factory bike – the decision-making process is far, far more complex than that.
It is a case study of the complex thought process that lies behind the decisions a rider must make when steering his career. With so little time spent at their peak, and so many factors outside of their control, the decisions a rider makes are not as clear-cut and simple as the fans would like them to be.
With Cal Crutchlow now confirmed to go to Ducati Corse (the team’s press release came in this morning), Pol Espargaro is now free to replace the Briton at the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 satellite MotoGP team.
Signing a two-year contract with Yamaha Racing, Espargaro will move up from Moto2 into the premier-class, and will campaign a Yamaha YZR-M1 alongside former Moto2 rider Bradley Smith.
Investing in the 22-year-old, the contract with Espargaro marks a clear signal from Yamaha Racing to develop young talent in the MotoGP series through the Tech 3 satellite team, and to have an ongoing chain of top riders on its factory teams for the considerable future.
The news also deals an end to the speculation about the Tech 3 team’s rider line-up, as Crutchlow, Smith, and Espargaro have been engaged in a game of musical chairs thru media reports. The terse announcement from Yamaha Racing is after the jump, along with the more lengthy press release from Tech 3.
After months of intrigue as to where the British rider would land for the 2014 MotoGP Championship, Cal Crutchlow has reportedly signed a two-year deal with Ducati Corse.
Taking the seat of the departing Nicky Hayden, Cal Crutchlow has finally bagged the factory position that he has been adamant about for the past season and a half. The official announcement is expected Friday of this week.
Tom Sykes may be having a tough time of things on the track in Moscow this weekend with WSBK, but off the track with Kawasaki Racing, the Brit has some good news. Signing up for another year with Team Green, Tom Sykes has his 2014 racing plans sorted out, and can get back to overcoming his 0.5 point let-down on last year’s World Superbike Championship.
Soon to make it five years in a row with Kawasaki Racing, Sykes currently leads the 2013 FIM Superbike World Championship by six points, though he will start Sunday’s races in the 9th grid position, after falling during the third round of the Superpole qualifying event.
Kawasaki says that with the rule changes coming down from Dorna, it was important for the team to shore up its lead rider. We think they made a fine choice, though the move may mean the offer is off the table for Nicky Hayden, as the American looks for a home outside of Ducati Corse’s MotoGP campaign. There has been no word on a contract for Loris Baz though.