The fans at Mugello were treated to a great battle in qualifying action on Saturday afternoon with Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo upstaging his teammate Valentino Rossi on the World Champion’s home track of Mugello, by taking the pole position at the Italian GP.
UPDATE: the FIM is reporting that 47 teams submitted entries for the 2010 Moto2 series, for a total of 91 riders.
Applications for the Moto2 series closed today, with nearly 60 teams making bids to join in on the fun of 600cc prototype racing. Likely, this number will be reduced to somewhere around 36 teams, the typical number of slots on GP circuits.
Of the applicants, all of the satellite teams from MotoGP submitted entries, with the exception of Sete Gibernau’s Grupo Francisco Hernando squad, as well as most of the 250 teams as well, with the Aspar team asking for three places on the grid.
With 34 teams signed up for the inaugrial Moto2 season, the series is over-subscribed for its launch in 2010. Adding itself to the fray allegedly is the French MotoGP team, Tech3. With Moto2 being such an enticing series for lower budget satellite teams, does MotoGP risk losing teams to Moto2 more than WSBK?
A recent Racer X interview of Craig Bramscher, CEO of Brammo, uncovered some interesting information about the electric motorcycle company. Including never before seen pictures of the Brammo TTR with race paint and Best Buy logo.
Craig Bramscher is sitting next to a computer monitor displaying a rendering of the TTXGP machine. It looks a lot like the race bikes of today sans exhaust pipe. Recent renderings of the Motoczysz and pictures of the Mission Motors have a slightly more futuristic design and are somewhat street legal with lights mounted.
Later in the interview Bramscher also gave new information on the target market for the Brammo Enertia and why Best Buy is Brammo’s choice for distribution.
Ever since the concept of the Moto2 class was announced, there has been some tension between the Flammini brothers and the Dorna for stating the Moto2 racing class. The Flammini brothers run the World Supersport class, which is sanctioned to be the only Production 600cc World Championship Series by the FIM. Moto2 has been accused by some for , and it would appear that Paolo and his brother Maurizio agree with us.
At Jerez this weekend, the Permanent Bureau (FIM & Dorna) was light on the details when it . However after the announcement, Shuhei Nakamoto, VP of HRC, revealed more information about the engine that will be used in Moto2.
It took Jorge Lorenzo just 1’38.933 to lap around the circuit at Jerez, and put himself at the front of the grid on Sunday for the MotoGP Spanish Gran Prix. The Spainard didn’t disappoint his home crowd, as he staved off the other local favorite, Dani Pedrosa.
The two riders have been in top form all week, and Pedrosa again demonstrated his improving form and fitness on the Repsol Honda RC212V , lapping just 0.051 seconds behind Lorenzo to take the second place spot on the starting line tomorrow. Completing out the front row is Casey Stoner, who was half a second behind Lorenzo at what he describes as his least favorite track.
Confusion in Daytona, Florida lead many race fans, and racers with some doubt as to who won, and whether not a full race had in fact occurred for this year’s Daytona 200. In a press release issued by the AMA, the sequence of events that led to the 6-lap sprint to the finish are as follows:
The lighting system that illuminated the chicane that leads into NASCAR turn 3 experienced a failure on or about lap 36, which brought out the “safety” (AKA pace) car. During this caution an unnamed rider collided with Graves Yamaha’s Tommy Aquino, causing Aquino to go down, which brought out the red flag, idling the field for nearly a half-hour. After a few warm-up laps behind the safety car, racing resumed only to to go back under caution when M4 Suzuki’s Kris Turner went down in the Horseshoe. Racing resumed in earnest on lap 49 and did not go back to yellow for the remainder of the race.
AMA race director Colin Fraser said that the discrepancy was a mistake and would not make excuses for the foul-up.
Lastly, Paradigm Racing’s Barrett Long, after a post-race protest, was given credit for a lap that was not counted during the red flag period which elevated him to 6th place ahead of Chaz Davies. Continue reading for the racing results.
Harald Bartol, who heads the KTM 125cc & 250cc GP teams, has revealed that the Austrian company was the first to use a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) on Tommy Koyama’s racebike last year. KERS was first fitted to Koyama’s bike during the 125cc GP in Valencia last year, and KTM is looking to explore how KERS could be applied in other racing applications and production motorcycles.
While we have lamented about how Oberdan Bezzi is a motorcycle artist and not a motorcycle journalist, despite the fact he is often cited as if he were one, the Italian artist has posted information on his blog (alongside a render of course) that Yamaha is rumored to be building a Moto2 bike which will be ready to compete when the series replaces the 250 class, either in 2010 or 201.
Yesterday, Honda announced that they would be cutting back on their motorcycle racing program, most notably withdrawing their factory team from the Suzuka 8 Hour race. Additionally, motocross and other off-road events will be dropped in order to cut costs, but we’ll miss Suzuka the most. The 8 Hour Suzuka race is a big deal for the Japanese Four. Each year Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki rope in their top riders from around the world to compete in the prestigious race, much to the chagrin of the riders who are usually enjoying their off-season time. Last year the race was won by Carlos Checa and Ryuichi Kiyonari.
Honda’s withdrawal does not mean that there will be a lack of Hondas on the grid. Only the factory team won’t race this year, but the Honda spokeswoman told the press that they would still help the remaining Honda privateers.
The one piece of good news from the announcement was confirmation of Honda’s commitment to MotoGP. Honda “won’t quit the MotoGP,” she said, adding that though Honda would be scaling back its support for motorcycle racing in general, the one series this would not affect would be MotoGP.
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