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Sepang MotoGP Analysis Day 3: The Surprises We Expected

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It would be one of the larger understatements of the decade to say that the first MotoGP test of the year at Sepang was eagerly anticipated. After the anti-climactic washout that was Valencia, many big questions of the 2013 season had been left hanging in the air over the winter. Given that motorcycle racing fans hate a vacuum even more than nature does, they filled it, with speculation, conjecture, hyperbole, and not a small amount of vitriol.

Would Valentino Rossi prove he still has it, or was his switch to Ducati merely the start of his downhill slide to retirement? Is Marc Marquez the real thing, or were his results in Moto2 deceptive, and down only to skullduggery on the part of his former team?

Can Yamaha match the Hondas, or does the advantage which Dani Pedrosa had over the second half of the season mean it will be impossible for Jorge Lorenzo to defend his title? What of Ducati? Will Andrea Dovizioso succeed where Rossi failed, and will the Italian factory be able to claw back some of the ground they have been steadily losing to the Japanese factories since 2007?

After nearly 8 hours of track time – more than many expected, with rain forecast for the period during the test – we have answers to replace the speculation, and data to fill the gaping void created by the winter testing break. Were the answers found a surprise? That depends on your perspective. Did anyone seriously think Rossi wouldn’t get closer on the Yamaha to the front runners than he did on the Ducati? No.

But does the gap to Pedrosa – 0.427 seconds – mean he is fast enough to compete for the championship, or will it leave him running round in third all year? Was anyone surprised by Marquez running up front right from the off? Surely not. But who predicted he would get within a few hundredths of his teammate on just his second proper test? Did anyone seriously expect the Ducatis to have closed the gap to Honda and Yamaha? That would be crazy. But to be two seconds down?

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MotoGP Sepang Test – Day 3: Enter the Factory Prototypes

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Dani Pedrosa has ended the first full-day of MotoGP factory prototype testing at Sepang at the top of the timesheets. The Repsol Honda man was fast throughout the day, finally setting a time that would not be beaten with an hour left of the test.

Though Pedrosa’s best time could not be bested, it was challenged, Jorge Lorenzo using the final minutes of the session to post his fastest lap of the day, falling just eight thousandths short of Pedrosa, but still right on the pace.

The most impressive performance of the day goes to Marc Marquez though, who was fast out of the box, led the session at one point and finished the day less than five hundredths of a second behind his teammate. Marquez had been expected to make a strong start, and be within a few tenths of Pedrosa and Lorenzo, but getting within a few hundredths can be classed as exceptional.

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Racing

MotoGP: Valentino Rossi’s Sepang Livery, Just Add Monster

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Valentino-Rossi-Yamaha-M1-Sepang-MotoGP-test-livery-06

You can tell it is the off-season when the subject of what Valentino Rossi’s Yamaha YZR-M1 will look like is an instant buzzworthy item, and you know MotoGP fans have been pretty hard-up over the past few months when even the test livery creates a frothing at the mouth. Today is no different.

Allegedly itself, Valentino Rossi’s test livery for MotoGP’s first pre-season test at Sepang is already creating quite a stir on Twitter. There isn’t all that much different about the Sepang livery and the livery on the Yamaha M1 that Rossi tested last November in Valencia, except of course for the fact that Monster Energy has been added to the layout.

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Opinion/Editorial

January 2013: The MotoGP & WSBK Story, So Far

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With the first full test for the World Superbike class behind us, and the first test of the MotoGP grid about to get underway at Sepang at the end of this week, it is time to take a look at motorcycle racing’s pre-season, and evaluate where we stand so far. Just what is the state of play for both MotoGP and World Superbike in 2013?

The question is even more pertinent now that both series have been taken under the wing of Dorna, much to the consternation of World Superbike fans and, to some extent, the WSBK paddock as well. It was feared that Dorna would either kill off World Superbike entirely to strengthen the position of MotoGP, or impose such stringent technical regulations on the series as to dumb it down to Superstock spec.

Fortunately, neither of those options looks likely. World Superbikes will continue as a separate series, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta was keen to explain when quizzed about the takeover at Ducati’s Wrooom launch event early in January. The aim is to build a strong WSBK series to stand alongside MotoGP, preserving the unique identity of the two series – WSBK as a place to race production bikes, MotoGP as the series for racing prototypes.

But exactly how should the phrase “production bikes” be interpreted? As a hotted up version of the road-going model, as is the intention of Superstock, or as a genuine racing machine built using the production bike as a basis, which is much closer to what some regard as the ethos of WSBK? The answer, it appears, will lie somewhere in the middle, and the factories will have a major say in how this all turns out.

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2013 MotoGP Pre-Season Testing Starts at Sepang

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The long wait of so many MotoGP fans is nearly over. The 2013 MotoGP season is about to get underway, or rather, the phony war of testing, which is the first step on the road to the 2013 MotoGP season. In just a few hours’ time, the howl of the CRT machines will fill the grandstands at Sepang, joined two days later by the roar of the MotoGP prototypes.

The CRT machines have two extra days of testing ahead of the full test at Sepang, where the teams will have their first chance to test the new spec Magneti Marelli electronics system on track, after having first dialed the system on the dyno at their respective bases.

The system will be used by all of the CRT teams ,except for those running the Aprilia ART bikes, and so far, the reaction has been very positive to the capabilities of the system. This should come as no surprise, given that Magneti Marelli is the de facto standard in the MotoGP paddock, already in use by both Yamaha and Ducati, though both factories run their own custom software.

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Ezpeleta’s Vision: Cost-Limited Racing in MotoGP & WSBK

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The Philip Morris-sponsored Wrooom event is not just the event at which Ducati launches its MotoGP season, it has also become the de facto kick off to the MotoGP season as a whole.

With an important section of the international media present, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta inevitably seizes the opportunity to talk to the press about his view of the season ahead, and where necessary, of the future beyond that.

This year was little different. Ezpeleta spoke to the media ahead of the presentation by Ducati Corse boss Bernhard Gobmeier, and answered questions from a number of media outlets separately, answering questions on the future of both MotoGP and World Superbikes.

From his statements, a picture of Dorna’s vision for the two series starts to emerge: the future of world championship motorcycle racing is to be price-limited, with more support for the current teams, and factories holding a stake in both series, in exchange for keeping a lid on costs.

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Racing

Photos: Rossi + Lorenzo + Yamaha = ???

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Valentino Rossi likes to refer to the Yamaha YZR-M1 race bike as “his” M1. Leaving Yamaha for Ducati, Rossi even wrote his M1 a “Dear John” goodbye letter, which many understood to be a message to former-teammate Jorge Lorenzo that the young Spaniard was riding on the coattails of the nine-time world champion. Burying the hatchet that once built a wall in the pit box, Rossi and Lorenzo are once again teammates, though the pecking order has changed to some degree within the factory Yamaha Racing team.

With Lorenzo the reigning World Champion, and Rossi coming off an abysmal two-year stint with Ducati Corse, for the first time in a long while, the Italian racer finds himself in the #2 seat. With some questioning whether the better days are behind him, there is even doubt coming from The Doctor’s own mouth about his ability. Sandbagging or true position, one can never be sure, but the issue is surely going to be one that is touched upon heavily in the beginning of the 2013 MotoGP World Championship.

With the winter ban nearly over, and riders returning to their racing duties, we won’t have long until we see bikes on the track testing. Until then, we have the marketing machines of the various factories for entertainment, and not to let Ducati steal the show with its 2013 Wrooom event, Yamaha has teased out some photos and a video of its 2013 team. Now, I am a huge fan of Gigi Soldano’s work, and I like to think I’m a pretty open-minded dude…but shit gets weird after the jump.

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Racing

This is Not Rossi’s New Yamaha MotoGP Livery

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The great winter depression is nearly over for MotoGP fans, as tomorrow Ducati Corse will debut its 2013 team(s) for the premier class, and soon enough we will see similar events from Honda and Yamaha as well. In February, the boys with their bikes will be back on the track, as the pre-season tests at Sepang again give us our first glimpse at the teams’ progress over the off-season.

Of course, the anticipation doesn’t stop some. Take graphic designer and DeviantArtist Samuel from Italy, he spent the long-winter months photoshopping together what many Rossi fans have been speculating about: the nine-time World Champion’s new livery now that Monster is sponsoring the Yamaha Racing MotoGP team.

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Dakar Rally – Stage 6: Yamaha Leads KTM into Chile

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It has been four stages since we checked in with the 2013 Dakar Rally, and a bit has happened since Cyril Despres’s eight-minute gaffe in the rally race’s second stage. Reclaiming the lead the very next day, Despres seemed back on his form, and ready to blow away the competition — Stage Four would say otherwise however.

Shaking up the leader board, it was Yamaha’s Olivier Pain who finished the fourth day of racing roughly three minutes ahead of his teammate David Casteu and KTM’s Cyril Despres, respectively. The fifth and sixth stages had the competitors leave Peru, and make their first crossing into Chile (the 2013 Dakar will leave Chile for Argentina tomorrow during Stage Seven and then re-enter Chile at Stage Twelve through to the finish).

The change of locale proved advantageous for Despres, who gained timed on the Yamahas in front of him, and finally overtook Casteu on today’s Stage Six. Frenchman Olivier Pain remained in the lead through today though, with a 2:22 lead over Despres, and nearly five minutes over Casteu, who is running in danger of being caught by KTM’s Chaleco Lopez and Ruben Faria.

There are two more days of racing in Chile, before the riders will have their one and only rest day, which serves as the halfway mark for the Dakar Rally. Commence onward for full standings and some photos of the top competitors.

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Official: Monster to Sponsor Yamaha Factory MotoGP Team

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Monster Energy has agreed to a two-year partnership deal with Yamaha Factory Racing, which will see the Monster brand act as sponsor to Yamaha’s MotoGP team. The announcement had been widely anticipated, and reported on here prior to Christmas, and extends Monster’s participation in MotoGP, where they go head-to-head with the other energy drink giant, Red Bull.

Though the deal between Yamaha and Monster will provide a useful influx of cash for the Japanese factory team (Spanish website Motocuatro.com put the total sponsorship deal at 4 million euros) Monster will not become title sponsor. Instead, the Monster logos will receive the same kind of prominence as Japanese oil sponsor ENEOS, appearing on the fairings of both bikes, as well as on the leathers of both Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.

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Video: Yamaha Welcomes Back Valentino Rossi

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There is no real mystery to why Yamaha signed Valentino Rossi. His seven MotoGP titles are a sign of his undisputed talent, and despite two years in the wilderness at Ducati, he is expected to be competitive from the start of the 2013 MotoGP season.

But with the reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo already signed, there was more to Yamaha’s decision than the need for a competitive rider. Marketing also played a massive role in the decision to sign the Italian, with reports that the decision came mainly after pressure from the marketing department, and in face of resistance from the people inside Yamaha’s racing department.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Yamaha will be sure to maximize their return on investment in Valentino Rossi. Rossi’s massive popularity in key markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and India mean that he could be a significant factor in expanding market share and sales in those regions, as well as consolidating Yamaha’s position in contracting sports bike markets such as Europe and the US.

Today, Yamaha took advantage of the first opportunity to use the selling power of Valentino Rossi to their advantage. The factory posted a video on Youtube welcoming Rossi back to the fold. The video runs through the highlights of Rossi’s career, ending with photo highlights of his return to Yamaha at the Valencia test in November 2012. It will be a fascinating time for both Yamaha and Valentino Rossi.

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