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Fabio Quartararo Will Replace Valentino Rossi in the Factory Yamaha MotoGP Team

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Today starts with the bombshell news story that Fabio Quartararo has been signed to the Monster Yamaha MotoGP team, just a day after Maverick Viñales inked a three-year deal with the factory squad.

Combined, this news is a huge moment for the MotoGP paddock, as it signals the end of Valentino Rossi’s factory riding position, and possibly his motorcycle racing career.

To stymie that headline, Yamaha was sure to publish a second press release on Quartararo’s news, to explain that Yamaha and Rossi were taking time to evaluate their future together.

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MotoGP

Maverick Viñales Signs with Yamaha Thru 2022, But What Does It Mean for MotoGP Going Forward?

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The first penny has dropped in the long march toward the 2021 MotoGP grid. Yamaha has announced that they have signed Maverick Viñales to a two-year deal, for the 2021 and 2022 season.

The move marks a clear decision, both on the part of Yamaha and the part of Viñales. The Spaniard had offers on the table from two other manufacturers, with Ducati especially keen to sign Viñales for 2021.

But, assurances given to Viñales about his role in developing the Yamaha M1 helped him make his decision. Viñales is to determine the future direction of Yamaha, based on the strength of his performance in the second half of 2020.

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MotoGP

The Coming Storm: How MotoGP’s Silly Season Will Play Out

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As the MotoGP field prepares to spend the holiday season at home with friends and family – or in Andrea Iannone’s case, with his lawyers – the impending pressure of MotoGP Silly Season will be pushed to the back of their collective minds.

But with the contracts of the entire MotoGP grid plus the leading Moto2 riders up at the end of the 2020 season, that state of quietude will not last long. Silly Season has been temporarily suspended for holiday season, but it will soon burst forth in a frenzy of speculation, rumor, and signings.

So how will the Silly Season for the 2021 MotoGP grid play out? Given the number of changes likely, it will be a complex jigsaw puzzle indeed, with a few key players at the heart of the process.

And as a confounding factor, teams and factories will want to avoid the current tangle they find themselves in. The era of the entire grid being on two-year contracts is as good as over.

There are a number of reasons for no longer automatically offering two-year deals to everyone on the grid. Neither the team managers nor the rider managers I spoke to over the course of 2019 were thrilled at the prospect of another contract cycle like we have seen for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

And the way the year has played out has given them plenty of reasons to avoid the same mistakes for 2021.

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #119 – Thai GP

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Episode 119 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the mics once again, as they discusses the Thai GP at Buriram.

Of course, the show has to start with the new MotoGP World Champion, Marc Marquez, who had a dominant season in 2019, and sees his sixth MotoGP title coming earlier in age than any other rider in history.

Looking back through Marquez’s season, it is impossible also not to talk about what has been happening in the Repsol Honda team, as well as HRC.

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #103 – French GP

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Episode 103 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the microphones, as we discuss the happenings at the French GP at Le Mans.

As usual, the guys cover the on track action at the race, as well as the goings on behind the scenes in the paddock.

The main topic of the show is Marc Marquez, who rode a master class race in France, and showed a truly unstoppable form throughout the race weekend.

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #101 – Spanish GP

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Episode 101 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the microphones, as we discuss the happenings at the Spanish GP at Jerez.

As usual, the guys cover the on track action at the race, as well as the goings on behind the scenes in the paddock.

Special attention is given to Marc Marquez’s victory at Jerez, as well as the meltdown of Fabio Quartararo, who became the youngest MotoGP pole-sitter ever, and looked to have a promising race ahead of him.

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Monday MotoGP Test Summary at Jerez: Quartararo Shines Again

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The day after the Spanish round of MotoGP, the riders were back on track, busting out lap after lap with a lot of work to be done. After 25 laps on Sunday in the punishing heat, almost the entire grid did another three race distances or more on the Monday.

Everyone rode, with the exception of Andrea Iannone, who was still suffering with an extremely painful ankle after a crash on Saturday, and Stefan Bradl, who had handed his test bike over to Marc Márquez to turn some laps on.

Conditions were ideal, the track all rubbered in after Sunday’s race and the track temperature in the mid-40s, perfect for Jerez. That was both a good thing and a bad thing: riders who wanting to work on something specific, such as corner entry or mid-corner speed, could take full advantage of the grip to understand the finer details of what they were working.

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Friday MotoGP Summary at the Argentina GP: Honda Highlights the Rules, & Ducati Finds the Pace

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It feels as if MotoGP has been talking about nothing but aerodynamics for a while now. It has been growing in importance since the advent of spec electronics made winglets a viable method of managing wheelie control, but the protest and subsequent court case against Ducati’s use of its swing arm-mounted spoiler has meant we have spoken of little else since then.

The decision of the MotoGP Court of Appeal did nothing to quell the controversy, but then again, whatever decision it made was only going to make the arguments grow louder.

But there is reason to believe that we are approaching the endgame of Spoilergate. On Friday night, reports say, Honda submitted its design for a swing arm-mounted spoiler to Technical Director Danny Aldridge, and had it accepted.

This would not normally be remarkable, were it not for the fact that Honda had also submitted the same spoiler on Thursday night, and had it rejected as illegal.

How did this happen? On Thursday, Honda presented the spoiler, saying it was to generate aerodynamic downforce, reportedly. That goes against the guidelines issued by Danny Aldridge, and so he had no choice but to reject it.

On Friday, Honda submitted the same spoiler, but told Aldridge it was to increase the stiffness of the swing arm, according to British publication MCN. Because that is not prohibited under the guidelines, Aldridge had no choice but to allow it.

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Saturday MotoGP Summary at the Qatar GP: Freezing Desert Nights, & Red Hot Track Action

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You don’t expect to be cold in the desert. On Friday evening, most of the paddock was wandering around in short sleeves and t-shirts until after 9pm. On Saturday, people were pulling on jackets shortly after sunset. By the time MotoGP finished, people were starting to lose feeling in their hands.

It wasn’t just the temperature. The wind had picked up enormously on Saturday, blowing sand onto the track in places, and blowing any residual heat from ever nook and cranny around the circuit. It was not the normal chill of the desert evening. It was cold.

That caused more than a few problems during the evening. Session after session, class after class, riders fell, mostly at Turn 2. That is the first left-hand corner for nearly 2km, after the final right-hander before the long straight, and then hard braking for Turn 1.

That is a lot of time for the front tire to cool down, especially when there is a hard headwind blowing down the main straight, whipping the heat from the tires.

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Mega Gallery: The New Riders & Machines of the Valencia Test

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The post-season test at Valencia is underway for the MotoGP Championship right now, giving us a hint at what to expect for the 2019 season.

The event is like a first date, with riders often getting their first laps on new machines, many of who are doing so with their new team as well.

This is also our chance to get to see some of the developments that teams have been working on for the next season, with the black fairings of test bikes hiding unknown technical secrets.

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Petronas SIC Yamaha MotoGP Team Set to Debut

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It is hard to keep secrets in the MotoGP paddock (though not impossible, as Jorge Lorenzo’s move to Repsol Honda conclusively proves). One of the worst kept secrets has been the news that the Sepang International Circuit, or SIC, is to expand its current operation to include a MotoGP team.

Over the months since rumors first started circulating, that Sepang was interested in running a MotoGP team, details have slowly dripped out, until we now have an almost complete picture. The whole picture is to be formally announced at Silverstone, at a press conference at 6pm BST on Friday.

Here’s what we already know: the team is to be an extension of the current Petronas Sprinta Racing team, which currently runs Adam Norrodin and Ayumi Sasaki in Moto3, and Niki Tuuli in Moto2.

The Petronas SIC Yamaha team, as it will almost certainly be called, will be the showcase team for the Petronas-backed structure run by the Sepang International Circuit.

The objective is to have two riders in each of the three Grand Prix classes, from Moto3 to MotoGP, as well as a team in the FIM CEV Junior World Moto3 Championship. 

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