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Moto2 Silly Season: Who Replaces Rins, Lowes, & Zarco?

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The first half of 2016 has seen a long and intense period of speculation, gossip and conjecture over which rider ends up where in MotoGP.

Big names have jumped from one factory to another, the entry of KTM has opened up opportunities for established satellite riders, and there has been much talk of the rookies entering MotoGP from Moto2 – Sam Lowes to Aprilia, Alex Rins to Suzuki, and Johann Zarco to Tech 3 (though the latter is still to be announced).

What there has been much less talk of is who is to fill their seats. Traditionally, Silly Season for Moto2 and Moto3 starts much later than for MotoGP, speculation and negotiations commencing in the run up to the flyaways, and often only being finalized at Valencia.

But with three of the strongest teams in Moto2 having seats to fill, team managers are looking ahead a little earlier than usual.

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MotoGP

Sunday MotoGP Summary at Qatar: Moto2 Madness, And The Dawning of a New Era

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May you live in interesting times, runs an apocryphal Chinese curse. The first Grand Prix of 2016 certainly provided us with plenty of events which might be termed interesting, in both the common sense of the word and the apocryphal curse.

The three races at Qatar were thrilling, tense, intriguing, and mind-bogglingly bizarre.

It is hard to know where to start. The first race of the day proved to be the most conventional, Moto3 serving up its usual treat.

A very strong group of eight riders, including all of the championship favorites bar Fabio Quartararo, battled all race long for victory, Niccolo Antonelli finally coming out on top by just 0.007 seconds, beating Brad Binder into second.

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MotoGP

The Big Fat MotoGP Silly Season Primer, Part 3

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While the eyes of the world will be on Yamaha, Honda, and Ducati as far as MotoGP’s Silly Season is concerned, the three remaining manufacturers in MotoGP will play an integral part in how this all plays out.

What happens at Suzuki and KTM is crucial to how things play out at Honda and Ducati, especially. Meanwhile, Aprilia will also have a role to play, albeit a lesser one.

As I wrote in part one of this Silly Season primer, this year’s set of contract negotiations look a lot more like musical chairs than anything else.

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MotoGP

MotoGP: An Update to the 2016 Silly Season Happenings

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With the flyaways fast approaching, MotoGP’s silly season for 2016 is reaching its climax. All of the factory seats are taken – including the seat at Aprilia vacated by Marco Melandri – and the top satellite rides are filled as well, either officially or unofficially.

A few pieces of the puzzle remain, but fitting those together is more or less complex, depending on the team and the rider involved. Here’s a look at where we stand so far.

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MotoGP

Preview of the San Marino GP: The Home Field Advantage?

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The key to success in motorcycle racing is in finding advantage wherever you can, and exploiting it to the fullest. If you are stronger in acceleration than your rivals, then you make sure you get out of the corner first and leave them for dead down the straight.

If you are stronger in braking, then you wait, not just until you see God, as the old racing adage has it, but until you have seen every deity imagined by humanity since the dawn of time before slamming on the anchors.

If you can turn tighter, you grab the inside line and push the other guy wide. You take what is on the table, and seize it with both hands.

So what about when you are racing in front of your home crowd? Do the cheers of your home fans push you to even greater heights? Does being willed on by tens of thousands of adoring fans spur you into taking more risks, trying harder, riding faster?

Going on the number of times that an Italian has won at Mugello or Misano, or a Spaniard at Jerez, Barcelona or Valencia, that is a tempting conclusion to draw.

Until you look at the other races on the calendar, and see that Spaniards and Italians have won in Australia, Japan, Britain, Holland. And that Spaniards have won in Italy, and Italians in Spain.

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MotoGP

The Massive MotoGP Silly Season Update

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Brno was a busy time for teams, managers and riders. Apart from dealing with jet lag and the sweltering heat, silly season kicked off in force at the Czech round of MotoGP.

The summer break and the chaos which ensued from the situation around the Forward Racing team put everything on hold over the summer, with tentative talks starting at Indianapolis.

Those talks, and events outside the paddock, helped clarify the situation, and at Brno talks began in earnest. The empty spaces on the MotoGP grid are starting to be filled.

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MotoGP

Sunday Summary at Indy, Part 2: Moto2 Madness & Moto3 Development Programs Rewarded

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This is part two of our Indy round up, covering the excellent Moto2 race, and the intriguing Moto3 race. If you want to read about MotoGP, see part one.

The Moto2 race turned out to be a barnstormer, a welcome return for the class. Once, Moto2 was the best race of the weekend, but in the past couple of years, it has become processional, and turned into dead air between the visceral thrills of Moto3 and the tripwire tension of MotoGP.

At Indy, Johann Zarco, Alex Rins, Franco Morbidelli, Dominique Aegerter, and Tito Rabat battled all race long for supremacy. They were joined at the start of the race by a brace of Malaysians, Hafizh Syahrin running at the front while Azlan Shah fought a close battle behind. Sam Lowes held on in the first half of the race, but as he started to catch the leaders in the last few laps, he ended up crashing out.

In the end, it was Alex Rins who took victory, just rewards for the man who had been the best of the field all weekend. It was Rins’ first victory in Moto2, and confirmation of his status as an exceptional young talent.

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Banter

Video: What It’s Like to Hang Out with Valentino Rossi

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Hanging out with Valentino Rossi has its perks. The nine-time world champion has all the cool two-wheeled toys a guy could want. He has an epic flat track course in the backyard of his house in Tavullia called MotoRanch. When his buddies come over to hang out, it’s people like Marc Marquez, Loris Capirossi, Bradley Smith, and a bevy of other professional motorcycle racers who show up.

Playing host to such a party after the San Marino GP, which takes place only a few miles away at Misano, Rossi & Co. seemed to be having an epic get-together. Thankfully, someone in Rossi’s entourage had the idea to film the 20-something riders who showed up all day to fraternize and ride.

Amongst those in attendance were Leon Camier, Loris Capirossi, Federico Fuligni, Luca Marini, Mattia Pasini, Marc Marquez, Franco Morbidelli, Chad Reed, Niccoló Bulega, Tito Rabat, Mauro Sanchini, Pecco Bagnaia, Bradley Smith, Andrea Migno, Lorenzo Baldassari, and Miguel Oliveira, though we think you’ll spot a few others in the video. Enjoy it after the jump.

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Racing

Valentino Rossi Starts the VR|46 Riders Academy

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“Get them while they’re young” — it worked for the cigarette industry, and the maxim holds true for motorcycle racing as well. Creating an effective system to cultivate and train young riders is the single largest reason that today we see Spanish riders dominating Grand Prix racing.

A system built in large part by the Godfather of Roadracing, Kenny Roberts Sr. himself, Spanish riders have enjoyed a federation that supports young riders and paces them throughout their career. The process has been so effective that the Italians have recently set to copying it, with their star pupil being Moto3’s Romano Fenati.

For the 2014 season, Fenati will be aboard the SKY Racing Team by VR|46, so it should come as little surprise that the personal brand of Valentino Rossi is lending its weight further to finding the next G.O.A.T. As such, the VR|46 Riders Academy has been established by Rossi and a crew of top-level instructors.

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MotoGP

2014 Provisional MotoGP Entry List Updated – Leon Camier Joins IODA Racing

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The FIM released an updated entry list for the three Grand Prix classes yesterday. Though the list was not much changed from the previous version published in November, there were one or two notable changes.

In the MotoGP class, Leon Camier was listed as the second rider at the IODA Racing team; in Moto2, Franco Morbidelli and Roman Ramos filled the last two vacant slots at Italtrans and QMMF respectively; and in Moto3, the winter signings of Ana Carrasco, Isaac Viñales, Scott Deroue and Enea Bastianini were added to the list.

The biggest news the list contains is the inclusion of Camier in the MotoGP line up. The Englishman has been linked with the IODA ride since November last year, when it became clear that Alex Lowes and Eugene Laverty would be filling the Voltcom Suzuki slots in World Superbikes.

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