It didn’t take long after Valentino Rossi’s highside for the speculation to begin as to whom will replace the Italian rider at Fiat-Yamaha, but as MotoMatters is reporting, the MotoGP team is in no rush to replace Rossi on their roster. For the next two races, Fiat-Yamaha will campaign only one bike on the MotoGP grid, leaving Rossi’s bike untouched as a sign of respect to the Champion rider.
Overshadowed by Rossi’s highside and subsequent injury, one thing we missed at Mugello (besides the Italian himself) was Rossi’s traditional custom helmet for the Italian GP. Always one to pander to the home crowd, Rossi has made it a tradition to have a special helmet designed for when he races at Italian tracks (with Mugello in particular), and this year was no different.
Valentino Rossi has had a horrific crash today during practice at the Italian GP at Mugello. Highsiding in Turn 13, Rossi has sustained a compound fracture to his right shin. He was flown by helicopter from the circuit to Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico in Florence where he underwent surgery on his leg. The surgery was successful in repairing the fractured bone, and Rossi is expected to be in the hospital for the next seven to ten days, and likely not to return to racing for at least six weeks. Video of the crash after the jump.
For the Italian GP at Mugello this weekend, Fiat-Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi saw it fit to try something a little different in his look for the race. While we are still waiting to see if Rossi will whip out his customary one-off Mugello race helmet, it’s what’s being hidden under the lid that’s catching people off guard…namely that mohawk pictured above. We can only imagine what Fiat-Yamaha crew chief Jeremy Burgess must be saying to Rossi after seeing the haircut (leave your caption in the comments). More Rossi mohawk photos after the jump.
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.
As a special promotion for MotoGP’s stop at Laguna Seca, the Fiat-Yamaha team will plant a lucky race fan’s face on the Yamaha YZR-M1’s of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. The “Get on the Bike” program officially starts June 1st, and will require fans to upload a picture of their face to the Fiat-Yamaha website.
Mike Werner at Bikes in the Fast Lane got a look at the prospective placement on the YZR-M1 while he was at the French GP as a guest of Fiat-Yamaha, and he reports that the placement is an “ideal spot”.
The winner of the Get on the Bike contest will be announced July 25th, good luck to everyone.
Source: Bikes in the Fast Lane
MotoGP action was back this weekend, with racing for the French GP coming from Le Mans, France. Fiat-Yamaha looked very strong coming into Sunday’s race, with a 1-2 qualifying session. Casey Stoner also looked like he had the French track’s number, as the Australian was the fastest rider in the warm-up session. Not to be counted out though, the Repsol Honda’s were sporting new frame configurations, which they were hoping would be the remedy to a lackluster start to the season. Read after the jump to see how it all panned out.
After seeing numerous crashes during qualifying and practice sessions, the rider grid for Sunday’s French GP is finally set, with a 1-2 qualifying position by Fiat-Yamaha. Valentino Rossi will lead the pack from the pole position, likely to be followed closely by teammate Jorge Lorenzo. Rounding out the top four are the other two aliens, Dani Pedrosa (3rd) and Casey Stoner (4th). More and full qualifying results after the jump.
There must have been someone going around the MotoGP paddock many years back, handing out bad financial advice to any rider they could find, because Loris Capirossi is now the second MotoGP rider (that we here at A&R can think of), that’s been slapped with an income tax evasion fine in the past few years.
Capirex, like Valentino Rossi before him, has found himself on the wrong-end of the law, after losing an appeal to his charge of income tax evasion, and accordingly must pay a €2 million fine for his actions.
In order to get ready for MotoGP’s stop at Le Mans in two weeks, Yamaha France has released a special promotional package and four (both in variety and total production) race replica motorcycles on its website. We’ve already seen the American Fiat-Yamaha R1 LE, with its race livery and fake Rossi signature, but the new race rep’s from Yamaha France will feature paint schemes from both the Fiat-Yamaha and Monster Tech3 Yamaha teams. For the added €1,000 price tag the race replica’s demand, they’re actually a pretty good value, especially when compared to the American YZF-R1 LE. More on that after the jump.
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.