Without giving too much away about this weekend’s WSBK race, Max Biaggi clinched the World Superbike Championship at Imola this weekend. For fans in Italy, this moment is being celebrated heavily, as an Italian rider, on an Italian bike, during an Italian race, has clinched a major championship title. For Biaggi fans, this title has been a long-time in the making, as The Emperor hasn’t won a championship title since his 250GP days.
Yamaha has quietly released information on the 2011 Yamaha YZF-R1 on its website, and as expected there are few changes for the new year. With plenty of R1’s sitting in the factory, Yamaha took a slugging during the recession, and is still unloading leftover inventory onto dealers. To help sell those 2011 Yamaha R1’s though, the tuning fork brand has thrown some new paint on the faster red ones…and by new paint we mean skulls with wisps of fire and brimstone.
According to , MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi is poised to launch his own Moto2 team for the 2011 season. Rossi is said to be funding the team, with lifelong friend Uccio Salucci acting as team manager. Italian rider Andrea Iannone (currently 3rd in the Moto2 Championship) has been linked to the team, as has chassis designer Suter (how’s that for a star-studded cast?). It’s not clear at this time if Rossi is expected to field one or two machines in the 600cc prototype class.
UPDATE 3: Michel Fabrizio has signed-on with Alstare Suzuki team for 2011.
UPDATE 2: Leon Haslam has signed with the BMW Factory Squad.
UPDATE: It’s being reported that Noriyuki Haga has agreed to ride with the DFX team on a factory Aprilia RSV4, with an announcement delayed out of deference to Biaggi’s impending WSBK crowning.
While the MotoGP silly season is just starting to wind down, the World Superbike shuffling of riders is apparently just getting underway. So far this silly season we’ve seen , confirming that he’d be with Ten Kate Honda next season, despite being only two years into a three year contract, which was a strange announcement at the very least.
After Ducati’s little spat with Infront Motor Sports last month, the Xerox Ducati Team will be no more in 2011, leaving factory riders Michel Fabrizio and Noriyuki S.O.L. when it comes to gainful employment, which is where our fist batch of silly season rumors starts us. If Moto.it‘s Carlo Baldi is to be believed (he is the listed press officer for Althea Ducati after all), Haga will find himself on a satellite Aprilia ride, while Michel Fabrizio will go to Alstare Suzuki. If you’re a die-hard WSBK fan you may realize that means that current Alstare Suzuki star Leon Haslam must be finding work elsewhere, with Baldi putting the British rider in the factory BMW squad. Still with us?
Through an Enterprise Zone tax credit, the Wisconsin Department of Commerce has handed Harley-Davidson a $25 million tax break for coming to terms with its labor unions in the company’s Tomahawk and Monemonee Falls production facilities. In a move that saw , the Bar & Shield brand has disclosed to the SEC that the agreement will save the company $50 million in annual operating expenses, but not before the company writes off a one-time charge of $85 million in restructuring costs, which includes the severance packages for laid off workers.
UPDATE: Photos of the rear do seem to confirm that passenger pegs exist and fold underneath the tail section.
British magazine website in other photos. While the tank and headlight still have some camouflage covering them, we get an especially clearer look at the Diavel’s left-hand side, which looks to be production ready.
Showing a unique trellis frame by Ducati standards, the Diavel also has a very pronounced “chin” fairing that likely helps draw air onto a lower radiator. Covering the top radiator appears to be another fairing the features gill slits, again likely for drawing air-flow through the whole of the bike.
Perhaps the biggest revelation to come from looking at these new photos, is the noticeable absence of a pillion and passenger footpegs, which brings up the question as to whether the Ducati Diavel will be a single-rider ride. You make the call in the photos after the jump.
Interbrand, the leader in brand consultancy, ranks the Top 100 brands each year according to their brand value, with brands like Google, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds usually taking the top honors. Interbrand’s method looks at the ongoing investment and management of the brand as a business asset, and then assigns a dollar value to that asset.
In motorcycling no brand is worth more than the Bar & Shield of Harley-Davidson, and the Milwaukee-based company is an Interbrand 100 regular. Dropping nearly 24% of its brand value this year (the most out of all the Interbrand 100 companies), Harley-Davidson fell from 76th on 2009 rankings to 98th in 2010, losing over a billion dollars in brand value in the process.
The guys at the , the 2011 Aprilia RSV4 will see the introduction of Aprilia’s traction control system (ATC). The 2011 Aprilia RSV4 will make its extra horsepower by raising the cylinder compression ratio via high compression pistons, and using a different timing chains. Other changes include a different exhaust can (smaller), and gearing changes (taller: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, shorter: 4th, 5th, 6th, with a larger 42 tooth rear sprocket).
UPDATE: Get your first glimpse of the MV Agusta F3 here.
In what can only be described as a terse press release, MV Agusta has released two teaser photos of its upcoming MV Agusta F3, the three-cylinder supersport bike that Claudio Castiglioni hopes will save his company. Known to be using a three-cylinder motor, it has been previously reported that the MV Agusta F3 would be a 675cc machine, just like the Triumph Daytona 675. However the Italian brand has confirmed that it will be using a 600cc displacement for its street machine, while giving us a glimpse of the bike without its F4 camouflage.
Pope Benedict XVI received a nice surprise today as Ducati Motor Holdings dropped off two purpose-built Ducati Multistrada 1200S Touring bikes for His Holiness. We don’t expect Il Papa to be riding the bikes anytime soon though, as the two Ducatis will be used by the Pope’s motorcade and Vatican gendarmerie (the Vatican police force), hence the special papal yellow paint scheme.
We came across this render while trolling the internet for Ukrainian wives, and thought to ourselves that it sure did look like the bastard child of the Yamaha FZ1 and the upcoming Ducati Diavel. Made back in 2009, this artist’s render pre-dates any of the leaked viewings we saw of the Diavel, but could be an interesting evolution of the VMAX design to answer the Ducati power cruiser.
We like to think of the render as a VMAX on steroids, although we can’t seem to wrap our heads around how the Öhlins shock above the motor mounting works out…but then again we had trouble finding Ukrainian wives on the internet (now that’s saying something).