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Qualifying for the Spanish GP got underway today under the sunny, but windy skies of Jerez, Spain. Unsurprising to just about anyone, the Repsol Hondas of Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa were on the top of the time sheets, with local Jorge Lorenzo completing the front row and only 0.16 seconds off the qualifying pace. While the rank and order surprises few, all eyes will be on the latter stages of tomorrow’s race to see how Dani Pedrosa can manage with his ailing shoulder, which the Spaniard will have operated on immediately after the GP
The qualifying session saw a total of six riders hitting the tarmac and gravel traps, with many blaming the wind as a contributing factor. The list of riders crashing includes Valentino Rossi, Ben Spies, Colin Edwards, Randy de Puniet, Karel Abraham, and Hiroshi Aoyama. Thankfully no one was injured, but in the case of Rossi, it meant trashing his preferred bike for the session, causing him to qualify on his other machine, and landing 12th on the starting grid.
He’ll be joined on the fourth row by teammate Nicky Hayden, who has been having a miserable season thus far on the Desmosedici GP11, and once again Randy de Puniet proved himself to be the fastest Ducati, qualifying seventh. Honorable mentions go out to John Hopkins, who continued his progress filling in for the injured Alvaro Bautista this weekend with a fourteenth grid position for tomorrow’s race. With a good start we could see a mid-pack finish for Hopper, who has shown marked improvement with each session on the Suzuki GSV-R.
With the rain very likely to make an appearance for tomorrow’s race, all bets are off for how the Spanish GP will shape-up.
Repsol Honda has debuted a new advertisement to go in-line with the MotoGP Championship stopping in Jerez, Spain this weekend. Drawing on the petroleum company’s sponsored riders in GP racing, we see Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Andrea Dovizioso, and Marc Márquez making an appearance for their benefactor. We can only imagine the acting direction that must have been given to the riders for this video: “Marc, you’re the youngest so no talking and only use your hands. Dani, divide a really big number by another really big number while staring off into space. Andrea, you’re hot, so very, very, very hot…do something about it. Casey, you’re a sweaty boy, and everyone knows it.”
While we don’t speak a lot of Spanish here in the A&R office, we imagine the real message here is about teamwork, winning, and using Spanish gasoline…at least that’s what we’re hoping for, and that this is not the making of a motorcycle-themed boy band music video. Honestly though, it’s a pretty cool video with the slow-motion shots, and luckily for Repsol it looks like they have a good chance of being on the podium this weekend to go along with this campagin. Check out the making of this video after the jump, as it looks like there’s some A-quality footage still to be used. Do we smell a sequel coming on?
The 2011 MotoGP Championship heads to Jerez, Spain this week, as the premier class gets ready for its second race of the season. 2011 so far has been a tough year for motorcycle tracks. First there was concern over whether Donington Park would get FIM homologation in time for World Superbike’s visit (spoiler alert: they did).
Then there was concern over New Jersey Motorsports Park, which filed for Chapter 11 protection, as the east coast venue sorts itself out financially with its creditors. MotoGP hasn’t been immune to this issues as well, as both Brno and Jerez have seen some concern of their future outlook.
While Brno is looking for help from the national government to make the dollars and cents make sense, Jerez was in a similar predicament except that the track has missed its last loan payment, and had its assets frozen my a local magistrate. Concerns over Jerez can now be put to ease though as the Andalusian State Government has announced that it will underwrite the popular Spanish racing venue through 2016.
John Hopkins has seemingly been unable to get out to Qatar in time to fill-in for the injured Álvaro Bautista, instead Rizla Suzuki will go without a rider for the Qatar GP. Despite that setback, Hopper will pick-up with the Suzuki squad at the Spanish GP, racing once again on the GSV-R at Jerez. Out of all the riders in the MotoGP paddock, Hopkins has had the most success with the Suzuki MotoGP bike, finishing fourth in the 2007 MotoGP Championship.
Spanish fans might get short-changed one of their four MotoGP rounds this year, as news comes that the managing group of the Jerez de la Frontera track has hit financial troubles. Missing a €2.5 million payment to the city of Jerez, courts have frozen Cirjesa’s assets (the company that oversees the circuit’s operations), which includes its payment to Dorna to host the Spanish GP round.
Jerez de la Frontera incurred these costs after re-vamping its facility back in 2005, a move which was financed by the Spanish city and other financial backer. With the land valued at €17 million, there is plenty of equity in the circuit to make good on the outstanding payment, and it looks like the city is eyeing the surrounding property for recompense on some of the full debt amount.
Marco Melandri has an interesting post on his blog this weekend about Jorge Lorenzo’s Le Mans victory celebration. In case you missed it, after the race Lorenzo seated himself in a lawn chair with a bag of popcorn and soda right smack in front of one of the giant televisions that broadcast the race to the crowd. Considering the last race Lorenzo won, he jumped into a pond, this celebration was a bit more demur, but as Melandri points out there may be more than meets the eye on this celebration.
UPDATE: GPOne.com (probably the most reliable source in the Italian Media) has gotten word from Livio Suppo that “no one has signed anything yet”, which probably confirms that Stoner is talking to HRC, but obviously hasn’t made his mind up about anything.
Silly season is officially underway starting today as the Italian press is full of accounts (all penning their source as being from Sportmediaset) that Casey Stoner has signed with the Repsol Honda MotoGP team, with a sub-headline that Valentino Rossi has been offered a two-year contract with Ducati. Sportmediaset cites the deciding reason for Stoner jumping ship as being the Australian rider’s disappointment in how Ducati backed him during his mysterious illness last year.
Despite headlining Stoner’s move, the bulk of their article concerns Rossi’s switch to Ducati, which may be a tip-off on the validity of the news, as the Italian press loves to pair the two marquee names together. We wade through the silly season possibilities further after the jump.
Did you ever wonder what a MotoGP win looks like on paper? Take away the close-passes, the high-speed wobbles, and on-air commentary, and all that’s left behind is the truth in the lap times. No excuses, no almosts, the above is a graphical represenation of what coming back from a 3.75 second deficite looks like at the storied Spanish track of Jerez, which saw Jorge Lorenzo win by over half a second when it was all said and done. Click here for a higher-res version.
Source: E_Bland
A crash caused by Shoya Tomizawa and Simone Corsi sent riders tumbling yesterday in the Moto2 race at Jerez. Colliding in the apex of the corner with Corsi, Tomizawa’s Moto2 race bike spilled oil onto the Spanish track, which saw eight other riders hitting the tarmac. With nine bikes in all falling victim to the oil slick, the Moto2 race had to be red flagged and restarted. Watch the bikes fall like dominos in the video after the jump.