Yamaha has withdrawn its request to unseal the engines to replace internal components which they believe caused issues for Maverick Viñales, Valentino Rossi, and Franco Morbidelli at Jerez.
Yamaha had made a formal request to the MSMA, the MotoGP manufacturers’ association, to open the engines and swap out defective parts.
Johann Zarco has been penalized for the crash with Franco Morbidelli, which happened during last Sunday’s MotoGP race at the Red Bull Ring.
The two riders faced the FIM Stewards on Thursday, the Stewards hearing their stories separately. After reviewing the evidence and listening to the riders, the Stewards decided to punish Zarco for irresponsible riding.
Johann Zarco did not come away completely unhurt by the massive crash he had with Franco Morbidelli in the Austrian MotoGP race at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday.
Scans made on Monday revealed that the Frenchman had suffered a fractured scaphoid in his right wrist in the crash.
The Frenchman is to travel to Modena in Italy to have surgery on the scaphoid, before returning to Spielberg to attempt to ride in the Styrian Grand Prix, the second race at the Red Bull Ring to be held this weekend.
Episode 158 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and it sees us covering the incredible Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.
As such on the mics, we have David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Steve English, as the trio discusses the latest round of the MotoGP Championship.
The guys have no shortage of topics to discuss for this one, and right off the bat there is the conversation about the incident between Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli, and the massive controversy that the crash created.
It was one of those days. We had a fascinating FP4 session for the MotoGP class, where a clear pattern emerged for the race, followed by a thrilling and action-packed qualifying, yet barely anyone is talking about that at all.
And all because early on Saturday afternoon, the bombshell dropped that Andrea Dovizioso will be leaving Ducati at the end of the 2020 season.
Though the news itself did not quite come as a surprise, the timing and nature of the announcement caught us all a little off guard. Ducati had said they had hoped to make a decision after the two races at the Red Bull Ring.
Desmo Dovi is no more. The eight-year partnership between Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati Corse will come to an end when the flag falls after the last race of the 2020 MotoGP season.
The news was made official by Dovizioso’s manager Simone Battistella, after a final meeting with Ducati management to try to agree terms. Battistella told broadcaster Sky Italia that they had been unable to find common ground to continue.
We nearly got away with it. The clouds hung heavy over the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg for much of the morning, but it stayed dry for all three classes, and the Red Bull Rookies practice as well – I will leave it to the imagination of the reader as to why the Red Bull Rookies are racing in Spielberg this weekend.
But halfway through FP2 for the Moto3 class, at the beginning of the afternoon, the heavens parted and the deluge began.
The weird thing about the rain is that it was so incredibly localized. The Red Bull Ring is a relatively compact circuit, not elongated like Assen, or spread out over a vast territory like Silverstone, so to have a downpour in Turn 3, the track completely soaked and water running across the track, while a few hundred meters downhill, along the front straight and at Turn 1, the track was completely dry, made for impossible conditions.
A few Moto3 riders nearly got caught out as they hammered up the hill toward Turn 3, then found themselves unable to brake for the corner and forced to run wide.
And so MotoGP lost out on FP2 almost completely. The track was neither one thing nor the other, soaking wet at the top half, between Turns 3 and 4, and desert dry down the bottom near the pits.
It was way too dangerous to go out on slicks, and a waste of time to go out on rain tires and burn up the limited sets they have. The wet parts of the track were wet enough for the soft wets, the dry parts of the track were capable of destroying even the medium wet within a few laps.
A short hop over the Alps – or rather, a short drive south, and then west between the Alps, to avoid the slow but spectacular progress over the mountain passes to the north of Spielberg – and the MotoGP paddock reassembles at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.
From one of the best tracks on the calendar, plagued by financial problems, to one of the best-funded tracks on the calendar, plagued by the fact that, well, frankly, it’s not a very good circuit for motorcycle racing.
The setting is spectacular, nestled at the foot of the hills rising from the valley of the river Mur and heading up to snow-capped peaks a couple of kilometers skywards.
The circuit sits on a slope at the bottom of those hills, making for a surprisingly steep climb up to Turn 1, then up the hill to Turn 3, along the hillside to Turn 4, before rolling down through a huge Omega right-left-right combination to get back to the bottom of the hill, and the straight which runs along it.
But the circuit belies its heritage, as a spectacular but treacherous mountain circuit crossing hills and woods.
And like many mountain circuits, there is little room for mistakes, with runoff limited at Turn 1, Turn 3, between the barriers from Turn 3 to Turn 4, and at the bottom of the hill into the final corner. In the dry, it is all just about manageable. But in the wet, it can be a terrifying place.
Episode 113 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett come together on the microphones, as we discuss the happenings at the Autrian GP at the Red Bull Ring.
In this episode, there is no shortage of topics to cover – thanks largely in part to KTM releasing a bevy of announcements at its home round.
Of course, before the start of the Austrian round, there was talk about the Repsol Honda garage, and whether Jorge Lorenzo would be departing it. By the end of the weekend, the conversation was still about Repsol Honda, but instead focused on the last-turn loss that was handed to them by Ducati Corse.
The Austrian round of MotoGP has been a weekend of bombshells. After the news that Ducati and Jorge Lorenzo had been in talks to replace Jack Miller in the Pramac squad before the weekend, on Sunday night it emerged that Johann Zarco asked to be released from his contract with KTM for 2020.
The Frenchman has long been unhappy with the Austrian factory, sometimes very publicly so. Since the moment he jumped on the KTM RC16, he has struggled to adapt to the bike.
Their home Grand Prix is traditionally the place where KTM announce the racing plans, and this weekend’s Austrian MotoGP round is no different.
There is to be a shakeup in the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, while the Austrian manufacturer has extended its commitment to MotoGP for five more years beyond 2021.
KTM will stop as a chassis manufacturer in Moto2, but bring back Husqvarna as a separate team and bike in Moto3.