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James Ellison

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Above: Glen Irwin is a man fast on the roads and on the short circuits. He won the feature race at last year’s North West 200 and backed that up with a win in Macau. As I write this, he’s just won a race at the North West 200 on his Ducati.

If MotoGP contracts were handed out based solely on the character of a race track, then Oulton Park in England would be at the top of the list.

The city is set in the idyllic Cheshire countryside, only 30 miles from the Beatles hometown of Liverpool, and 13 miles from the historic city of Chester. The track is fast, techinical, with natural elevation changes and spectacular scenery.

There are few finer places to watch motorcycle racing when the sun is shining than at Oulton Park. The natural banking around the track offers great unobstructed views.

If you’re a keen photographer the circuit offers fantastic opportunities with very few fences getting in the way.

Paul Bird Motorsport has finally announced its rider line-up for the 2013 MotoGP season, and unsurprisingly James Ellison is not a part of the team. Bumping up to a two-rider squad, PBM will have Yonny Hernandez and Michael Laverty on dueling, but differing, Aprilia-powered bikes. The Colombian Hernandez will continue PBM’s efforts on the Aprilia ART racking package, while the British Laverty will campaign a British built CRT bike that uses an RSV4 motor.

Laverty’s chassis is reportedly being made by GPMS Technology, and the project is being headed by Phil Borley. PBM’s move to field a team-made bike is an interesting one, especially as the Aprilia ART is one of the most developed CRT packages on the MotoGP grid. Additionally, the team’s choice is interesting after Ellison’s comments about the PBM’s lack of testing and development for the 2012 season, an issue that will have to be turned around if the PBM-CRT project is to have any success.

The claiming rule team (CRT) bikes are both figuratively and literally under the spotlight at Qatar this race weekend, with their production-based motors and prototype frames shaking up the norm of pure prototype racing. Both an effort to take power away from MotoGP’s MSMA, which is comprised of Ducati, Honda, & Yamaha, and as an effort to lower the cost of racing in MotoGP for its participating teams, the CRT experiment is getting its first real test this weekend.

Swelling MotoGP’s grid with an additional nine-racer entries, the CRTs have certainly helped fill MotoGP’s ranks, though mostly with riders we are not familiar with. Leading the CRT charge is American Colin Edwards, and he is joined by Randy de Puniet, who didn’t wish to be on a CRT for the 2012, but has still found himself at the top of the heap. These two veteran MotoGP riders have been accompanied by seven riders that hail from a range of world and national championships that span everything from Spanish Superbike (CEV) to British Superbike to the Moto2 Championship.

Since on Sunday morning, MotoGP fans are going to have learn the names of these new riders and the bikes they ride, we have put together a primer on the CRT entries for the 2012 MotoGP Championship. Bios, specs, and notes on all nine MotoGP CRT entries are after the jump.