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MotoGP

The Four Factors That Will Matter in Andalusia for MotoGP

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Racing is back, at last. After a period of four months, in which the COVID-19 pandemic took us on a journey from concern through despair and back to hope again, the MotoGP paddock is busy once again, preparing for a weekend of on-track action.

Not as busy as otherwise, perhaps, the atmosphere is very different from a normal weekend, with no fans, no VIPs, no guests, no media, and half of the team members working from home.

But the trucks are behind the garages, the riders are in their leathers, and the bikes are back on track.

So what should we be looking out for this weekend, now that racing has returned? Here are a few things to keep an eye on at this critical opening race.

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MotoGP

Fabio Quartararo & Sergio Garcia Penalized for Unauthorized Practice

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Fabio Quartararo and Sergio Garcia have both been handed penalties for using unauthorized machines to practice on track. The pair have been punished by being forced to miss the first 20 minutes of FP1 when action resumes on Friday.

The two were punished for separate incidents, Garcia for riding at Aragon in June, Quartararo for riding at Paul Ricard in the same month.

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MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the Spanish GP – Racing Returns at Last

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It is hard to believe, but it is here at last. After a layoff of over four months due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Grand Prix racing motorcycles will be back on track in just a few hours time.

At first it seemed like there would be no racing at all in MotoGP, as race after race was canceled, but as the pandemic started to burn itself out in Spain and Italy, Dorna and the FIM started searching for a way ahead.

As the weeks passed, the cancellations ceased, and plans were laid for a new season. Hugely curtailed, and limited to just a handful of tracks, and with the way the series would be run radically reconfigured to make it as safe as possible.

13 races to be held over 18 weekends, teams limited to a much smaller presence, a limited number of TV crews, and journalists excluded entirely. Everything to avoid MotoGP becoming a catalyst for the further spread of the disease, and races having to be canceled once again.

So on Wednesday, bikes take the track again for a day of testing for all four classes – MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, and MotoE – before the season kicks off in earnest again on Friday. On Sunday, we should be racing again, at last.

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MotoGP

Putting Together the Final Pieces of the 2021 MotoGP Rider Lineup

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It was a busy day for MotoGP rider announcements, this Monday. Three riders were confirmed in teams, with a fourth confirmed as leaving. The announcements were hardly a shock, but there was room for the odd raised eyebrow or two.

At Honda, there was the expected reshuffling to make room for Pol Espargaro in the Repsol Honda squad, the Spaniard offered a two-year deal alongside Marc Marquez. This bumped Alex Márquez down to the LCR Honda team, with a two-year contract as compensation.

Alex Márquez may have lost his ride in the factory team before a wheel has turned in the 2020 MotoGP season, but at least he is now assured of three seasons in the premier class to prove himself.

If there was a surprise in the announcements, it was that Cal Crutchlow was being released to make room for Alex Márquez.

The Englishman has been a valuable asset in the development of the Honda RC213V, his feedback highly rated, and he is a firm favorite in the LCR squad, bringing a lot of media exposure to the satellite team.

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Dirt

Risk vs. Reward: Is Motocross Too Dangerous for MotoGP Riders?

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66 million years ago, an object somewhere between the size of Mt. Everest and the country of Luxembourg (or the island of Puerto Rico) slammed into what would become the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico at a speed of 20 kilometers per second, or 72,000 km/h.

The impact that an asteroid of that size moving at that speed made was unimaginably vast: scientists estimate that the energy released was around 100 million times that produced by Tsar Bomba, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever built.

The devastation that impact caused, helped along by wide-scale volcanic eruptions and climate change, killed a large percentage of life on earth, wiping out virtually all land and amphibian species larger than 25kg in body weight.

It could happen again. Objects from outer space hit the earth with alarming regularity. 50,000 years ago, a nickel-iron meteorite 50 meters across struck Arizona, creating the aptly named Meteor Crater.

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WSBK

Randy Krummenacher Splits with MV Agusta, But Italy Knows Nothing About It

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In a surprise move, reigning WorldSSP champion Randy Krummenacher has announced that he is splitting with the MV Agusta Reparto Corse team with immediate effect.

The Swiss rider gave only vague reasons for the split. In a press release, he blamed “serious breaches on the part of the company that compromise both the rider’s performance as well as his professionalism, reputation, and personal integrity.”

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MotoGP

Valentino Rossi Will Announce Petronas Yamaha Deal at Jerez

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It appears that the deal is done. Italian media, including La Gazzetta dello Sport and GPOne.com, are reporting that Valentino Rossi has reached agreement with Yamaha for a new two-year deal to race in the Petronas Yamaha squad.

The deal is to be announced during the weekend of the first MotoGP round once it resumes at Jerez next weekend.

The deal will initially be for 2021, with an option to extend the contract for a second year to 2022. Rossi will take a seat in the Petronas Yamaha squad alongside VR46 protege Franco Morbidelli, who should also be announcing a new contract soon.

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MotoGP

Fabio Quartararo’s Paul Ricard Practice Bike, And Whether the Punishment Will Fit the Crime

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One of the many good things about being a MotoGP rider is that you get offered a lot of free stuff.

Take a careful look at the social media feed of any rider and you will see stickers and logos on display, discretely or blatantly, on all sorts of items: caps, sunglasses, t-shirts, jeans, jackets, bicycles, underwear, motorcycles, leathers, MX gear, helmets.

You name it, and some brand or other will have given it to a rider to show off on their social media.

There can be a downside to this, however. Just ask Andrea Iannone – the Italian’s protestations of innocence after testing positive for drostanolone, an anabolic steroid used to achieve a chiseled physique were undermined by the fact that he posted so many pictures on Instagram wearing nothing more than the underwear from the company paying him to do so, with the kind of muscle definition that makes you wonder.

The price of getting free stuff is having to show it off to the world via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Precisely this deal appears to have caught out Fabio Quartararo.

Though he was not named in the FIM press release announcing that two riders would face a hearing at Jerez for breaching the practice rules, which governs which bikes riders can use when riding at a track outside of officially sanctioned Grand Prix tests, it quickly emerged that Quartararo was one of the riders involved, the other being Sergio Garcia.

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Racing

Interview with Kenny Noyes – Five Years After the Fall

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Five years ago, on July 5th, 2015, at the Motorland Aragon circuit, reigning Spanish Superbike champion Kenny Noyes was getting ready for that weekend’s round of the CEV Spanish Superbike championship.

The American, son of veteran US journalist Dennis Noyes, and former Moto2 rider, had work to do to cut his deficit in the standings to current leader Carmelo Morales.

Noyes would not get a chance to close the gap. During the Sunday morning warm up session, the Kawasaki rider crashed. It was a bad crash. Very bad. So bad, in fact, that Noyes was left in a coma, and taken to hospital with suspected severe brain trauma.

In hospital, his coma was assessed as being very bad. His score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was 3, the lowest possible score, and the most severe condition of unresponsiveness, which is only distinguished from death by basic functions of lung and heart.

After a long coma, and then a long period of what is called “minimal consciousness” which is basically a vegetative state, Noyes began moving up the scale.

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MotoGP

Two Riders Will Face FIM Stewards Over Training Infringements

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Two unnamed riders have been caught infringing the Grand Prix testing and practice regulations.

In a press release issued today, the FIM announced that breaches of the rules had been reported, which would be investigated during hearings to be held at the (re)opening of MotoGP at Jerez, on July 19th.

Though neither the names nor the specific infraction were mentioned in the press release, the wording of the announcement makes clear that the incident involves either Moto2 or Moto3 riders, and that they are accused of having used bikes that were not eligible to be used for training.

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WSBK

Michael van der Mark Leaving Yamaha WorldSBK at the End of 2020

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Yamaha has announced that Michael van der Mark will be leaving their WorldSBK team at the end of the 2020 WorldSBK season. After what will be four seasons with the Pata Yamaha squad, the 27-year-old Dutchman has decided to leave for pastures new.

There is as yet no confirmation of where Van der Mark is heading, but reports on Speedweek suggest his destination is likely to be BMW.

With Kawasaki already having signed Alex Lowes and Jonathan Rea, and little interest from either Ducati or Honda, BMW is the obvious choice.

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