Photo: Monster Tech3 Yamaha
At Silverstone this weekend, the infamous highside crash has claimed another rider: Hiroshi Aoyama. After crashing during the warm-up session, Aoyama was eventually taken to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where it was confirmed that the Japanese rider had fractured his T12 vertebra. Aoyama will be moved to Barcelona, Spain tomorrow, where he’ll see another specialist and get a second opinion on how to treat his condition.
One of the special things we’ve been working on here at Asphalt & Rubber is bringing our dear readers better race coverage, especially from MotoGP. As a part of this efforts, we’ll be featuring some of the best shots photographer Scott Jones takes while galavanting around at some of the finest tracks in the world.
He’s got game, he’s got moxy, and once we even saw Scott take a little girl’s ice cream so he could truly capture “disappointment” on film. In essence, he’s the photographer we wish we could be. Check out his photos from the British GP after the jump.
If you haven’t seen today’s British GP at Silverstone, stop reading this article, and go watch your Tivo right now. We can hardly contain ourselves after watching the race, so we’ll keep this intro short. While the race winner is not going to surprise too many GP race fans, it’s the rest of the finishes that had us jumping up and down on our chairs. Spoilers after the jump.
Silverstone has taken the wraps off its modified Grand Prix circuit, dubbed the “Arena”. The British track has poured in €4 million and spent the past five months renovating itself with an addition 2,500 feet of racing distance. With the modified circuit, engineers expect the Arena to have some of the fastest speeds in Formula One and MotoGP. Helping launch the new circuit was the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who cut the ceremonial ribbon.
The provisional MotoGP schedule is out. New to the line-up (well sort of), is the stop in Hungary at the Balatonring (yet to be built). And also, the British GP will be held at Silverstone instead of Donington Park. Donington will host Formula1 instead for the foreseeable future.That shouldn’t be a surprise to you if you’re a A&R regular, but for you newcomers…umm, gee…well, SURPRISE!
Dorna doesn’t seem convinced that the Balatonring will be completed in time. So they’ve hedged their bets with a “reserve circuit” in Spain, the Motorland Aragon Circuit. Motorland is a brand new facility that is just outside of Alcañiz, about a hundred miles inland from Barcelona. If the reserve circuit is used, it will mean 4 Grand Prix’s in Spain for 2010.
That might be good news for the rabid motorcycle racing fans of Espana, but it’s even better news for Motorland, which has been trying to establish itself as a premiere venue, by courting Formula1 and MotoGP. Full listing of the schedule after the jump.
Track modifications at the Silverstone circuit look set to make it one of the fastest circuits on the MotoGP calendar, when the MotoGP series heads to the Northamptonshire venue from 2010 onwards. The new Silverstone circuit, which will feature a spectacular new section of track running from the approach at Abbey corner to a tightening ‘Arrowhead’ hairpin at the inside of Becketts, will measure 3.5 miles in length, a third of a mile longer than the existing Grand Prix circuit.
Based on mathematical simulations, HOK Sport, one of the world’s leading sports architecture firms, has calculated that the average lap time for MotoGP riders around the new track would be 1’51.456, racing at an average speed of 113 mph, almost 2mph faster than at Phillip Island, which is currently the fastest circuit in MotoGP.
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British based Visordown is reporting that an inside source has revealed that Silverstone will host the 2010 British GP instead of Donington Park. All is not lost for Donington fans, as it looks like they will be hosting Formula 1 instead.
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