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Alex Rins is to race for the LCR Honda team for the next two years. The official announcement only came today, but that Rins would end up at LCR was a foregone conclusion since the MotoGP race at Assen, where the Spaniard had admitted as much.

“We are almost done and everybody can imagine where I will go next year with the exit of Alex Marquez going to Gresini,” Rins had told us on the Sunday night of the Assen race.

There is a MotoGP race at Le Mans this weekend, but to be honest, it is hard to concentrate on the race. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks, which has shaken up MotoGP to a degree we hadn’t expected even as late as two weeks ago.

Suzuki’s withdrawal blows the MotoGP silly season right open, with not just rider seats up in the air, but grid slots and bikes too.

Then there’s the controversy over tire pressures being routinely under the minimum allowed, and whether that is even an issue or not, given the MSMA have agreed not to do anything about it.

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.

The Yamaha YZR-M1 and the Suzuki GSX-RR have a lot in common. Both are inline four cylinder machines, and both rely more on corner speed and maneuverability than outright speed. And the riders of both machines have complained about a lack of speed at great length.

So great was Joan Mir’s frustration with the Suzuki’s lack of power in 2021 that he made a veiled threat to seek solace elsewhere. “A lot of people finish their contracts in 2022 and we are hoping to renew, or to take a different decision,” the 2020 world champion said before the test at Sepang.

“Honestly, the test will be important for me. It will be important to understand everything. As a Suzuki rider now, I feel great here, I feel like I am at home, but it’s true that a change is something that in some moments can be good, also. But at the moment, I cannot speak more about it, because there is nothing decided. But let’s see.”

The biggest difference between Suzuki and Yamaha is that where for Fabio Quartararo those complaints continued after the tests at Sepang and Mandalika, Joan Mir and Alex Rins pronounced themselves happy.

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.

Usually when a MotoGP team launches its racing effort for the coming season, our focus is on the bike.

The machines launched at these debuts may not be the 2022-spec bikes we will see at the opening round in Qatar, but they offer some sizable two-wheeled pornography for us nonetheless.

And when it comes to the ECSTAR Suzuki Team, the Suzuki GSX-RR is one of our favorites each year, as the Japanese brand has managed to adapt the four-cylinder bike to be not only one of the most balanced on the grid, but also the most attractive.

It’s race week again. For both the MotoGP and WorldSBK paddocks, with the World Superbike series also making its debut at a new track, the Autodrom Most in the northwest corner of Czechia 55 km south of Dresden and 75km northwest of Prague, and which looks on paper to offer a nice, varied array of corners and challenges.

But WorldSBK at Most (be ready to be drowned in a tidal wave of superlative-based puns) comes after just a single weekend away, the production-based series having raced at Assen two weeks ago.

MotoGP is back after its longest summer hiatus in recent memory, a whole five-week absence from racing.

The normal build up to a MotoGP weekend sees the teams and riders spend FP1 figuring out which tires they think will work, then FP2 working on setup and then chasing a preliminary spot in FP2, leaving themselves plenty of work for Saturday, especially in FP4. But, Qatar is not a normal weekend.

For a start, MotoGP arrives here after a total of five days of testing (well, four days, strictly speaking, as the last day of the test was lost to strong winds and a sandy track). Setups have already been found, tires have already been chosen.

The preseason is over. Preparations have been made, new parts tested, bikes, bodies, and brains readied, though not necessarily in that order. MotoGP is on the verge of starting another brand new season.

There was less to develop, test, and prepare this year, the aftermath of rules imposed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic introducing freezes on engine development and limiting aerodynamic updates.

The four factories who did not have concessions in 2020 – Ducati, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha – will all be forced to use the engines they homologated for their riders last year for the 2021 season.

KTM, who lost concessions thanks to a phenomenally successful season which included three victories, has been allowed to design a new engine for 2021, but must freeze it at the first race in Qatar.

Aprilia, the only remaining factory with full concessions, will be allowed to continue to develop their engine throughout 2021, and will have nine engines to last the season, instead of the seven the other factories have to try to make last the year.

In terms of aerodynamics, things are a little simpler: the riders can either use their 2020 aero package, or they can introduce one upgrade aero package at any time during the season (including at the first race).

And of course, aerodynamics packages are applied per rider, rather than per manufacturer.