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Here Is Movistar Yamaha’s 2018 MotoGP Livery

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While the MotoGP boys are in Sepang right now, working properly on their 2018 machines (including revised aerodynamic packages), back home the teams are busy debuting their liveries for next season.

We have already seen Ducati’s new colors for 2018, and now it is Movistar Yamaha’s turn to show us the livery that Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales will wear for the coming season. No surprises here, it’s very blue.

While not too much has changed visually (these launches are becoming more a PR event, rather than a glimpse into next year’s racing machines) though Yamaha Racing have news for us that it has tied up Viñales with a two-year contract extension.

Of course, we can expect similar news from Valentino Rossi in the coming months, as the Italian is set to finish his career with Team Blue, before likely transitioning into a team owner rule inside the paddock.

All of that will come at a later day, however, and right now the 2018 MotoGP Championship season is rapidly approaching. Until the green flag waves at Qatar, we have some high-res photos of the 2018 Yamaha livery and for you to drool over.

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MotoGP

Maverick Viñales Signs Two-Year Deal with Yamaha

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Maverick Viñales announced during the presentation of the Movistar Yamaha team in Madrid that he has signed a new two-year deal with Yamaha. At the launch, he said he felt very happy inside the team, and felt they shared his objectives.

“I will be two more years in Yamaha,” Viñales told the presenters, Izaskun Ruiz and Dylan Gray. “I’m very happy. I feel really good in the team, I feel the competitiveness, and especially I felt the desire to win.”

“It’s something I like, it’s something I want, and we arrived at a really good compromise, and for both, it’s been really special and good. So thanks to Yamaha, because as always, they made my dreams come true. Let’s see if this year we can do another one.”  

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #66 – MotoGP Season Review

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Episode 66 of the Paddock Pass Podcast sees Neil Morrison, Steve English, and David Emmett on the mics, as they look back on the 2017 MotoGP Championship season.

The show breaks down the season into five categories, with the hosts trading their picks on best GP races, best and worst riders, the most surprising moments, and the best overtakes of the year.

Their picks make for some good debate, and it helps preview the coming pre-season tests, which are about to get underway. Winter might still be here, but racing is just around the corner.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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MotoGP

Three Predictions for the 2018 MotoGP Season

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A new year brings new opportunities, and a chance to start again with a blank slate. The future is unknown, and so now is a time for predictions, some wild and baseless, some canny educated guesses.

That we do not know which category our predictions will fall into is half the fun of making them, of course.

2018 looks like being another outstanding year for motorcycle racing. There is much reason for optimism: the racing in MotoGP has never been as close as it is now, the field is deep in talent and the bikes are close in performance.

There are fresh young faces coming up through Moto2 and Moto3 too, ready to push aside the old guard, and new rules in MotoGP may help to address the disparity between the championship front-runners and those who pursue them.

Will the new season play out as we hope? Anything can happen in racing, but here are three predictions for 2018, and factors to watch in the coming year:

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #65 – MotoGP Winter Testing

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Episode 65 of the Paddock Pass Podcast sees Steve English, and David Emmett on the mics, wrapping up all the news from the MotoGP post-season winter testing sessions.

In the show, the guys cover the MotoGP tests at Valencia and Jerez, and give some insight into what to expect from the pre-season tests to come, once the winter testing ban is over and the 2018 season is closer upon us.

Of particular interest is the progress that KTM has made; the choices facing the factory Yamaha team; Honda’s early debut of the 2018 RC213V race bike; and last what to do with the very talented Johann Zarco.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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Dirt

Get Ready for the 2018 Dakar Rally

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Track days are winding down, the new machines for next year have already been revealed, and the cold of winter is upon us. For the motorcycle industry, this is the low-point of the season.

There is something to look forward to in the off-season, however, and it’s the Dakar Rally.

In just about one month’s time, the world’s top off-road racers will take part in what is called the most grueling motorcycle race on the planet.

The 2018 Dakar Rally is the 40th edition of the iconic rally raid, and once again it will take place far from its namesake, with competitors racing through Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

This year’s route will take racers to the Pacific Ocean, through the Huacachina sand dunes, and beyond, until they finish in Córdoba.

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MotoGP

Wednesday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia Test

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The moment the bikes fell silent at Valencia, at 5pm on Wednesday, officially marked the end of the beginning. The 2018 season is now well underway, the initial outlines of next year’s bikes being revealed.

There is still a long way to go to Qatar, but the first step has been taken, the first few hundred terabytes of data downloaded to laptops and uploaded to factory servers for analysis.

The new season began in much the same vein as the old season ended: with Marc Márquez fastest, and on a tear.

The Repsol Honda rider was fastest on the second day of the test, and fastest overall, four tenths quicker than his teammate on Wednesday, and a tenth quicker than Maverick Viñales, who had topped the timesheets on Tuesday.

The timesheets had a familiar look to them. The top five overall consisted of the two Repsol Hondas and three Yamahas – the two Movistar factory bikes and Johann Zarco on the Tech 3 machine – followed by a couple of Ducatis, Jorge Lorenzo on the factory bike and Jack Miller on the Pramac machine.

Whether the timesheets will stay like that when Qatar rolls around is another question entirely.

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MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #63 – Valencia GP

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Episode 63 of the Paddock Pass Podcast sees Steve English, David Emmett and Neil Morrison on the mics in Spain, as they cover the final race of the MotoGP Championship season – the Valencia GP.

Of course, a big portion of the show is about the race between Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso to win the championship. Both riders put in a masterclass season of racing, though only one could be crowned World Champion at the end of it.

It also goes without saying that the show covers the very obvious team orders that Ducati Corse issued to Jorge Lorenzo, both at Valencia but also at Sepang. Would that change the course of the championship? The guys seem to think not.

Conversation is also made about the rise of Johann Zarco, Yamaha’s troubles within its factory teams, some rumors for KTM’s future, and the progress made at Aprilia and Suzuki.

Naturally, the show ends with our hosts’ biggest winners and losers for the Valencia round. Another great show from the Paddock Pass Podcast crew, so you won’t want to miss it.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

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MotoGP

Tuesday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia Test

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The first day of 2018 raised more questions than answers. Two days after not featuring at all in the race, the Movistar Yamaha riders finished first and fourth.

A satellite Ducati – Jack Miller, on his first outing on the bike – was quicker than the factory riders. The only constants were Marc Márquez and Johann Zarco, who finished in exactly the same positions as they did on Sunday.

Confusion reigns at Yamaha, as they search for the cure to the problems which plagued them all through 2017. There were four bikes in Maverick Viñales’ garage, three in Valentino Rossi’s garage, and two different ones in Johann Zarco’s pit box.

They were testing all sorts of combinations of machinery: a 2016 bike with 2017 engine, and a full 2017 bike for Maverick Viñales; a 2016 bike with 2017 engine, a full 2017 bike, and a 2017 bike with a 2018 engine for Valentino Rossi; and a 2016 bike and a full 2017 bike for Johann Zarco.

The results? Pretty much identical, no matter what bike the riders were on. Viñales and Rossi were fastest on the 2016 bike, Zarco was fastest on the 2017 bike, and Rossi managed to throw the 2018-engined bike up the road after just two laps. The crash looked huge, but Rossi came away relatively unscathed.

The problem was entering a fast right corner with a new cold tire. “Turn ten,” Rossi explained. “Maybe a cold tire. I was already with two and a half laps so I push. I lost the front. I don’t know if I was a little bit off the line or it was cold.” Rossi may have been okay, but the bike was completely totaled.

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MotoGP

Sunday MotoGP Summary at Valencia: When Team Orders Go Bad, And Other Miracles

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In a season which has been rammed to the rafters with drama, it is entirely appropriate that the final round of the year should be just as dramatic. It was partly to be expected, of course, with a championship at stake.

Sure, Marc Márquez entered the weekend with a nigh insurmountable 21-point lead. But he still had to finish at least eleventh or else hope that Andrea Dovizioso did not win the race.

Things were looking good after qualifying: Márquez would be starting from pole, while Dovizioso would have to line up on the third row of the grid.

Between the two, a host of fast rivals capable of getting in the way of Dovizioso’s charge to the front, and perhaps even depriving him of the race win by taking victory in their own right.

By the time the checkered flag fell at the end of the race, enough had happened to fill a Greek epic. Team orders and betrayal, crashes and near crashes, deceit and disguise, secret swapping of bikes, and a bunch or people finishing much higher than any had a right to expect.

An intriguing winner, a rider deprived of victory, and at last, a champion crowned. If the 17 races before Valencia had generated plenty to talk about, the final race of the year topped it all.

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MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at Valencia: The Thunderdome

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It is a quote I have used so often that it has become a cliché. When I asked the now sorely-missed Nicky Hayden what motivated him after a difficult day, he replied “That’s why we line up on Sunday; you never know what’s gonna happen.”

That is as true now as it was then, but you cannot escape the law of probabilities. Of course you never know what’s going to happen on any given Sunday. But if you want to hang on to your money, it is wise not to bet against the most likely course of events.

As of Saturday night, Andrea Dovizioso can still become 2017 MotoGP champion. But he trails Marc Márquez by 21 points in the championship. He has to win the race to even have a chance. Márquez has to finish no better than twelfth.

Dovizioso starts the race from ninth on the grid. Márquez starts from pole. And Márquez, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, and Johann Zarco all have (slightly) better race pace than Dovizioso.

The chances that Dovizioso becomes champion in this timeline are rather slim. Bookies have the odds of the Factory Ducati rider winning the 2017 title at 14/1.

They have Márquez at 1/50: even when interest rates are at a record low, you would make more money by putting your cash into a savings account rather than having a flutter on the Spaniard wrapping up his fourth MotoGP title on Sunday.

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