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Video: Google Street View Does Silverstone

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Google Street View is one of those internet services that you don’t think much about, that is of course until you use it a few times, and wonder how you ever got along without it. Giving you an eye-level view of your destination, it has proved to be indispensable here at A&R, as we search for a new workspace.

Tangents aside, the folks at Silverstone have been keen to get the British track a bit more publicity (ladies, did you see Leon Haslam getting his leathers painted on?), and accordingly invited the folks from Google to come out with its Street View camera setup.

Now, here is the fundamental difference between us Yanks and you Brits. Over here in America, land of freedom, democracy, and well armed bears, when we take a bunch of pictures of a road to put on the internet, we use this thing called an automobile. Crazy? Yes, we know.

We feel sorry for the poor Google bastard who had to ride the 3.666 mile track on a three-wheeled bicycle, that just doesn’t seem right (we hear it took him 45 minutes to get around the course). Watch the video of his labors after the jump. As for the fruits of his labor, check it out here.

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Leon Haslam Strips Down to Promote WSBK at Silverstone

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World Superbike’s next stop is Silverstone, and BMW Motorrad’s resident Brit was willing enough to bear all to help promote WSBK’s stop at his home round. Stripping his leathers down to his waist, Leon Haslam got his torso and arms painted by by double World Body Painting Champion Carolyn Roper. Taking three hours to complete the effect, Roper’s work is pretty phenomenal, as was Leon’s patience.

“It was frustrating having to stand in one place for three hours and not see what was going on, but I couldn’t believe it when Carolyn had finished applying the paint and I was finally allowed to look in the mirror,” said Haslam. “The body paint was unbelievably realistic and the attention to detail, right down to the sponsors’ badges, was incredible. Carolyn is amazingly talented.”

Check after the jump for the superb photos by the UK’s renowned photographer Gary Prior, along with a time-lapse video of the whole process. Don’t worry ladies, we have embedded the full-resolution photos in the post, while the “smaller” 2000px photos are in the gallery.

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Trackside Tuesday: Patience is a Virtue

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One of the great things about the support classes in Grand Prix motorbike racing is the depth of the competition. While there are a handful of favorites in each class, we generally don’t have the Three Alien situation of MotoGP. Once a rider leaves that broader talent and equipment pool for the premier class however, his potential results are limited by the bike he lands on.

Alvaro Bautista paid his dues for two years on an 800cc Suzuki, finishing in lucky thirteenth spot for both the 2010 and 2011 championships. If Suzuki hadn’t folded up and gone home for 2012, Bautista might still have been on an uncompetitive bike with a crowd of fans who could only think fondly back to what an exciting 125cc and 250cc rider he had been.

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Who Needs MotoGP.com When We Have This?

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If you are a true MotoGP fan here in the United States, then you have surely dropped SPEED’s abysmal coverage of the premiere class for the vastly superior coverage on Dorna’s own web property: MotoGP.com. Having a monopoly on internet-based video coverage of Grand Prix racing, MotoGP.com certainly brings its euros-worth of MotoGP/Moto2/Moto3 news, interviews, and analysis to your computer screen.

However, there has always been a desire for something more, something free — now that day has come. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us introduce to you the MiniBikers web series. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hate Alvin & The Chipmunks even more than you already do. Check out the Silverstone round re-cap after the jump.

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Trackside Tuesday: Seeing is Not Always Believing

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For the first quarter of the British Grand Prix, there was a Ducati racing at the front  in a dry race, something we’ve not seen for some time. Almost as soon as Nicky Hayden crossed the line with 15 of 20 laps to go, his GP12 changed from something that could match the pace of the leaders into something else entirely.

Hayden lost fourth place to Lorenzo, then fifth to Dovizioso, both times going wide as his bike suddenly wouldn’t turn like it had been doing for the previous four laps. Hayden said in his post-race media scrum that the bike had been great until it destroyed the soft rear tire.

Earlier, when I’d walked onto pit lane and headed for the grid, we felt sprinkles in the air and wondered if the volatile weather was about to change from cool-but-dry to wet-and-even-colder, as it had several times over the weekend.

It seemed unlikely that it would start raining hard enough to begin the race on wet tires, but up and down pit lane crew chiefs appeared from their boxes, looking up at the skies, wondering what to do. Soft or hard tires? Dry, cool, warm, damp, what would the track be like over the course of twenty laps?

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Sunday Summary at Silverstone: Of a British Hero, Tire Problems, and a Troubled Marriage

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For the past few years, attending a MotoGP round has been a disheartening experience for most British fans. After sitting in traffic for several hours, they then faced a day of getting soaked to the skin while watching their local heroes – if any were actually on the grid – circulating around at the rear of the pack. At the end of the day, they faced yet more hours sitting in a chaos of traffic chaos, with usually another downpour of rain, just to get home again. They loved it, of course, but it tested their courage.

2012 would be different. The miserable weather magically disappeared for race day – it was far from perfect, but it remained largely dry – Scott Redding got on the podium in Moto2, and Cal Crutchlow put on a heroic and brilliant performance in MotoGP. It might be fair to question the wisdom of Crutchlow’s decision to lie about his foot not being broken and race anyway, but there is no question about his bravery or pain threshold, nor, after starting at the back of the grid and slicing through the field to finish 6th, matching the pace of race winner Jorge Lorenzo, about his ability. The British fans have a hero again. More than one, in fact.

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The Marquez Rule: MotoGP to Drop the Rookie Rule in 2013

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The rookie rule is to be dropped for the 2013 season. The Spanish daily El Pais is reporting that Dorna and IRTA have decided that the rule preventing MotoGP rookies from being signed to a factory team had to be scrapped due to the difficulties presented by the limited number of bikes available to ride. As a consequence, it was felt it was better to drop the rookie rule altogether, rather than create more problems for existing satellite teams by maintaining it.

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MotoGP: British GP Gives Vital Confidence Boosters

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With Sunday’s race having perhaps some of the best weather yet at Silverstone, the British GP started with concern, after Cal Crutchlow missed qualifying after a hard crash in FP3. Getting cleared to ride Sunday morning, the Honey Badger was relegated to the back of the grid for the start, dashing any hopes of a podium finish.

Still, the man from Man delighted British fans with his resolve to go racing, with further spectacle coming in the form of Alvaro Bautista’s first MotoGP pole-positiion start, putting his black San Carlo Gresini Honda in front of the factory machines of Ben Spies, Casey Stoner, and Jorge Lorenzo. With the British GP showing the first signs of Spies’ renewed confidence, MotoGP fans had all the makings of a good race as the sun shined through the cloud cover. To see how it all finished out, click on past the jump.

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MotoGP: A Touch of Rain Shakes up Qualifying at Silverstone

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With tough conditions being the week-long tradition at the British GP, MotoGP qualifying at Silverstone began with dry, but very windy, conditions. Friday’s rain saw the Ducatis of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden on the top of the time sheets, though the day proved to be the tale of two Ducatis, as once the British track dried, the Desmosedici GP12 once again showed its other personaly, and proved to be a handful in the dry.

Unsurprisingly, Casey Stoner was the fastest once the water cleared, with Yamaha-man Ben Spies showing some renewed confidence as well. Noticeably quick was satellite Honda rider Alvaro Bautista, who posted a third and fifth in FP2 & FP3 for the San Carlo Gresini Honda team, respectively. With the weather supposedly set to improve tomorrow, though the chance of rain still seems to be a coin toss of probabilities, the certainty for a wet race seems to have been reduced in the paddock, though the tough windy conditions can still be expected.

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