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Sunday Summary at Qatar: The Unexpected & The Expected, That’s Why They Line-Up on Sunday

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“That’s why we line up on Sunday. You never know what’s gonna happen.” Nicky Hayden was replying to one of my typically stupid questions after the race in Indianapolis in 2009. The day before, I had asked him if he had given up hope of a good result after qualifying in 6th on the Ducati in front of his home crowd.

That Sunday, he had ridden a solid race and taken advantage of the misfortunes of others, ending the day on the podium. The heady mixture of hope, determination, talent and a smattering of luck put him where he wanted to be. Or close to it at least.

Hayden’s phrase is one of the most succinct and accurate descriptions of motorcycle racing, as the events of the season opener at Qatar go to show. The script that we all thought had been written on Saturday got torn up and thrown out the window on Sunday. Because you never know what’s gonna happen.

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MotoGP

Dani Pedrosa’s Season Uncertain as Arm Pump Persists

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Dani Pedrosa is to seek urgent treatment for a severe arm pump problem. After the race at Qatar, in which Pedrosa could manage just a sixth place, the Spaniard revealed that he has been suffering with severe arm pump for the past year, which has badly affected his results.

Pedrosa spoke to a lot of specialists over the winter, all of whom suggested avoiding surgery, as the Spaniard has already had surgery to try to fix the problem last year, which has not proved successful.

The less aggressive treatment he tried over the winter has failed to solve the problems, which arose immediately during the very first race. Pedrosa will now try to find another solution to this problem, and will seek further medical advice on treatment.

His main priority, he told the media, was to fix the problem with arm pump, before trying to race again.

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MotoGP

Saturday Summary at Qatar: Of Ducati’s Revival, An Underrated Dovizioso, & Yamaha’s Struggles

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A Ducati on pole? Three Ducatis on the first two rows? Four Ducatis in the top ten? Cheater tire! The only logical explanation for the grid positions the factory and Pramac Ducati secured at Qatar is the fact they have the special soft tire available to them.

And that tire, we are told by everyone who is not on a Ducati, is worth a second a lap. So the grid positions of the Ducati are a travesty, right? Come the race, they’ll be rolling road blocks holding up the rest once their tires go off, right? Wrong.

This narrative, current among everyone who sees their favorite rider further down the grid than they had hoped for, bears only a very passing resemblance to the truth.

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MotoGP

Friday Summary at Qatar: How To Pick a Winner When a Second Separates the Top Nineteen

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“It’s just nuts to be separated by one second over the 5 km around this place.” It is hard to argue with Eugene Laverty’s assessment of just how close the times are after free practice for MotoGP. Laverty is either really close to Marc Márquez, or a long way behind Marc Márquez, depending on how you measure it.

The Irishman had a solid day of practice to come up just over a second shy of Márquez’s best time on Friday evening. His problem is that as impressive as his time was, there are eighteen riders ahead of him.

It is, quite frankly, ridiculously close. “I don’t know when was the last time you saw down to 21st was inside 1.3 seconds,” Jack Miller said in awe. “It’s almost like we’re in Moto3 again.”

The closeness of the field was a frustration for everyone on the grid. Miller, Scott Redding, Nicky Hayden, even Valentino Rossi cannot believe how tough the field is. “This practice is unbelievable, because there are ten bikes in three tenths!”

That does not make it any easier to pick a winner, however. Marc Márquez is the least troubled of the riders on the grid, fast both in race trim and on a single lap.

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MotoGP

Thursday Summary at Qatar: Racing For Real & The Strange Consequences of Sponsorship Falling Through

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When the flag drops, the speculation stops. Though usually, a rather more forthright word is used instead of speculation.

After the long winter of testing, of trying to assess who was trying what on which lap to try to compare lap times, MotoGP is underway for real. Everyone on track is looking for race pace, and a fast lap to ensure they get into Q2. It is a whole lot easier to comprehend, and infinitely more thrilling.

Conditions had not looked promising ahead of practice. Strong winds blew down the front straight in the late afternoon, raising fears that they would coat the circuit in dust and sand.

Then shortly before the action was due to kick off, a few drops of rain started falling, threatening to at least delay proceedings should it continue. But the wind dropped and the rain stopped, and the 2015 MotoGP season got underway as planned.

Fears about the track were unfounded, lap times quickly heading towards something resembling race pace.

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MotoGP

2015 MotoGP World Championship Preview

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The prospect of a new MotoGP season always leaves fans giddy with anticipation. Their appetites keenly whetted by winter testing, and speculation over the times set at those tests, they boldly predict that this season is going to be the best MotoGP season ever. Though the racing is often good, all too often, it never quite lives up to the preseason hype.

There is every reason to believe that this year, it will be different. The bikes, the riders, the teams, the motivation, it all points to 2015 being an exceptionally exciting season in MotoGP.

At the last day of winter testing at Qatar just over a week ago, less than a second covered the top fourteen riders, and two seconds covered all but four of the MotoGP field.

A similar pattern emerged at Sepang: with the exception of the occasional hot lap by Marc Márquez, there were ten or more riders within a second of each other. Things haven’t been this close for a while.

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MotoGP

MotoGP: Aspar Loses “Drive M7” Sponsorship Before Qatar

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It has been a tough day for sponsorship news in the MotoGP paddock. After news earlier of LCR Honda’s title sponsor CWM being subject of a fraud investigation, the Aspar Honda team have lost their title sponsor, Drive M7.

The Malaysian energy drink firm have withdrawn their sponsorship of the team on the day before the 2015 season was due to start.

According to German language publication Speedweek, the Drive M7 management told team owner Jorge Martinez about the decision on Tuesday night.

The decision was a surprise, as it had been expected that the deal would continue in 2015, with both Nicky Hayden and Eugene Laverty riding in Drive M7 testing colors during preseason testing.

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MotoGP

The 2015 MotoGP Rules Primer: Engines, Fuel, Tires, Testing, & More for the Five Factories

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Once upon a time, Grand Prix racing rules were fairly simple: bikes had to have two wheels, weigh 130kg, have a maximum capacity of 500cc and a maximum of four cylinders. The switch to four strokes in 2002 added a lot of complexity to the rules, and things have been getting slowly worse since then.

MotoGP now has two different categories with three different rule sets covering a single class, depending on entry type and results in recent years.

With Suzuki and Aprilia entering the series in 2015, and another rule change on the horizon for 2016, it’s time to take a quick look at the rules for this season, and see what has changed since last year.

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Racing

WSBK: What Kind of Track Is The Chang Circuit in Thailand?

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The Chang International Circuit is an unknown for everyone in World Superbikes this weekend. A new track in a new country represents many challenges for the teams and the riders, as they try to figure the fastest way around it.

It is an unknown for fans, too, most of them only having seen the track layout map on the World Superbike website.

Fortunately, racing has already taken place at the Chang circuit. The Asian Road Racing Championship held a round at the track in November 2014, which included two races from the Supersport 600 class. On its YouTube channel, it also has the full races from every round of the series, including the races at Chang.

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MotoGP

MotoGP: Bridgestone Adds Two More Tires for 2015 Season

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Bridgestone have added two new tires to their 2015 allocation, in response to developments in 2014. A new extra-hard rear will be made available at a few of the more abrasive circuits on the calendar, while the asymmetric front, debuted at Phillip Island last year, will also be available at more tracks.

Two new tires means two new color codings, to distinguish them from the existing allocation of tires. The extra hard rear will carry a yellow stripe around the side, while the asymmetric front will be indentifiable by a light blue band on the sidewall.

The existing color codings for the remainder of the tires remain unchanged, as shown in the tire chart and table below.

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MotoGP

MotoGP Qatar Test Summary – Day 3: No Action, Just Rain

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The final day of testing for the MotoGP class at Qatar ended as a washout. The rain did not lift, as many had hoped, and no action took place on track. The entire day was lost to the weather.

It had started raining much earlier in the day, and light rain was falling as teams arrived at the track ready for a 4pm start. It had been hoped that the rain would stop and the track might dry out. Unfortunately for the teams, the rain did not stop, getting worse in the end, and a thunderstorm rolling in.

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