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Karel Abraham Talks About Being Fired by Email, Promises Broken, & Fired Crew Chiefs

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On Saturday night, Karel Abraham told a meeting of his fans that he would not be back in MotoGP. The Czech rider found out on Friday that the Avintia team wanted to end their relationship, when he received an email from a notary representing the team stating in Spanish that the team would be terminating his contract.

The move can as a massive shock to Abraham. It had been completely unexpected, as he had been told at Valencia that he would be back with the team in 2020, and to turn up for the test at Jerez. Only on Saturday was he told not to travel to Jerez.

Abraham had already made arrangements, however. He also needed to recover his leathers and various other belongings which had been sitting in the Avintia truck when it was driven to Jerez for the test.

While he was at the Jerez circuit picking up his belongings, Israeli TV commentator Tammy Gorali, present in Jerez to report on the test, grabbed him and spoke to him for on our behalf. That gave Abraham a chance to give his side of the story.

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Finally Official: Avintia Ends MotoGP Contract with Karel Abraham

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Karel Abraham is to cease racing in the MotoGP class for the foreseeable future. The 29-year-old told a meeting with fans on Saturday night that he would not be returning to the Avintia team for 2020, and that it is likely he will end his active racing career altogether.

Abraham made his decision after being told not to come to Jerez for the two-day MotoGP test due to start on Monday.

The email had come as a hard blow, Abraham told the fans, as he had a contract to continue racing with the Reale Avintia team for 2020. But on Friday night, he had received an email terminating the contract, though Abraham disagreed with the reasons given.

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Paddock Pass Podcast #123 – Valencia GP

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Episode 123 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is another MotoGP show, as we finish the season with the final stop on the calendar, the Valencia GP

Of course, this means that we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the mics, as they are our MotoGP Championship reporting duo for the 2019 season.

As you can imagine, there is a lot to talk about on this episode, as the Spanish round started with the startling news that Jorge Lorenzo would be retiring at the end of the season.

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Tuesday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia Test: Making Premature Conclusions

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What conclusions can we draw from the first day of testing for the 2020 season? Not much, other than a lot of factories have brought a lot of new parts.

And it really does feel like a lot of new parts, with new chassis for KTM, Yamaha, Honda, Ducati, new engines all round, and a host of other bits and pieces in preparation for the new season. New riders, too, with Brad Binder, Iker Lecuona, and Alex Márquez all moving up to MotoGP for 2020.

It is particularly tempting to jump to early conclusions about the rookies. There is a clear pecking order, an easy way of deciding who is adapting quickly, and who is taking their time. By that measure, Iker Lecuona is the man to beat, the Red Bull Tech3 KTM rider finishing just under 1.5 seconds off the leading gaggle of Yamahas at the test.

Brad Binder, in the factory Red Bull KTM team, is just under 2.4 seconds behind quickest rider Fabio Quartararo, while the latest addition to the class, Alex Márquez, was last, 2.7 seconds slower than the Petronas Yamaha rider, and nearly 2.2 seconds slower than his brother Marc.

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Alex Marquez Will Race in MotoGP with Repsol Honda for 2020

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Repsol Honda has officially confirmed that Alex Marquez will partner his brother Marc at the Repsol Honda team for next year. It is the first time that a pair of brothers have raced in the same team in MotoGP.

There have been other brothers riding in the same class at the same time – Aleix and Pol Espargaro the latest example of that, but never before have brothers raced in the same team in either 500cc or MotoGP. 

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Friday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia GP: Cold Crashes, Impossible Schedules, & An Impressive Debut

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Valencia is a fine place to celebrate the end of the MotoGP season. For the vast majority of the paddock it is close to home, at most a couple of hours by airplane, car, or train. It has a fine building in which to host the end of season awards ceremony, the Palacio de Congresos, designed by renowned architect Norman Foster.

And it draws a massive crowd, over 100,000 fans turning up on Sunday to watch a race which usually doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, beyond rider pride (and there is little much grander than rider pride).

But it also has its downsides. The track is neatly folded inside a tight little bowl, but at the cost of having a lot of left-hand corners, and only a couple of rights. And with the season at its current length, the race is in mid November, and even when the sun is shining, temperatures can be Baltic, something the winter winds don’t do much to help.

Caution is advised in these conditions. With the track temperature in the mid teens, even very soft rubber on the right hand side of the tire is not enough to save you at Turn 4 if you try pushing too hard, too early. As Valentino Rossi found to his cost.

In FP1, the Italian entered the first right hander of the circuit a little too fast with a new tire, and found it wasn’t quite up to temperature. “Sincerely, I made a mistake, a stupid mistake, because I had the soft front, but I pushed a little bit too much already in the first lap, and I crashed.”

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia GP: The Gravity of Jorge Lorenzo Retiring

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It has been a long year in MotoGP. Valencia is full of tired faces, the cold and windy weather a good reflection of the mood of the paddock. The last race of the season should be a festive occasion, but after eighteen races, and the last four overseas, there is little energy or enthusiasm left for the season finale.

Valencia made a fitting backdrop for Jorge Lorenzo’s announcement that he would be retiring. It came as a surprise to almost everyone – except for one canny journo who had put a bet back on the Spaniard hanging up his helmet back in August – but it was a move that was widely understood.

Spinal and head injuries are the two greatest fears of motorcycle racers, and the fact that Lorenzo came very close to suffering a life-changing injury made it easy to find sympathy for him. There was respect not just for Lorenzo’s choice, but also for the Spaniard’s achievements.

Until Marc Márquez came along, Lorenzo looked set to go down in history as Spain’s greatest ever premier class rider. Even then, he remains the only rider so far to have won a title in the Márquez era.

He was a rider whose ability to carry corner speed astounded his rivals, left them befuddled at how he could go so fast through corners without crashing.

He leaves MotoGP as the fifth most successful premier class rider, and the sixth most successful rider of all time in all classes.

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A Look Back on the MotoGP Career of Jorge Lorenzo

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Jorge Lorenzo is set to retire from motorcycle racing. The 32-year-old Spaniard has decided to end his career as a result of the disastrous season at Repsol Honda, hampered by extreme crashes and severe injury, and never having become comfortable on the bike.

“I always thought that there are four significant days for a rider,” Lorenzo told a specially convened press conference at Valencia. “The first is you first race, the second your first win and then your first world championship – not everyone can win a world championship but some of us made it – and then the day you retire.”

The decision to retire came because he could no longer summon the required energy to continue at the level which was necessary. “Everything started when I was three years old, almost 30 years of complete dedication to my sport,” Lorenzo said.

“People who work with me know how much of a perfectionist I am, how much energy and intensity I have always put into my sport.”

“This level of perfectionism requires a lot of motivation, that is why after nine years at Yamaha – so wonderful, probably the best years that I enjoyed in my career – I felt that I needed a change, if I wanted to keep this full commitment to my sport.”

“That’s why I wanted to move to Ducati, it gave me a big boost of motivation and even though the results were very bad, I used the motivation to not give up and keep fighting until I achieved this beautiful Mugello victory in front of all the Ducati fans.”

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Paddock Pass Podcast #122 – MotoGP Flyaways

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Episode 122 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a MotoGP show, as we catch back up with the premier class on its flyaway rounds at Japan, Malaysia, and Australia.

As such, this means that we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the mics, as they are our MotoGP Championship reporting duo for the 2019 season.

As you can imagine, there is no shortage of things for them to talk about, especially as we head into the final round of the season, at Valencia.

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Jorge Lorenzo: “This Will Be My Last Race in MotoGP”

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When it was announced that Jorge Lorenzo would be holding a special press conference at 3pm, the Thursday before the start of the Valencia round for MotoGP, and that Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta would be talking at the media event as well, the news could only mean one thing: Jorge Lorenzo was about to announce his retirement from the MotoGP Championship.

It is true what they say about smoke and fire, and today the smoke cleared for an announcement from the man himself, telling a packed press conference room that “this will be my last race in MotoGP” and his last race-weekend as a professional rider.

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Hungary Will Host MotoGP Race from 2022? Echoes of the Past

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Hungary is a potential candidate to host a MotoGP race from 2022, when the current calendar expands to 22 races.

Over the summer, Dorna signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hungarian government to host a race for five years, between 2022 and 2026, at a new circuit to be built in the country.

The memorandum of understanding is just the first step on a long and tricky road to actually organizing a race.

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