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UPDATE: Get your first glimpse of the MV Agusta F3 here.

In what can only be described as a terse press release, MV Agusta has released two teaser photos of its upcoming MV Agusta F3, the three-cylinder supersport bike that Claudio Castiglioni hopes will save his company. Known to be using a three-cylinder motor, it has been previously reported that the MV Agusta F3 would be a 675cc machine, just like the Triumph Daytona 675. However the Italian brand has confirmed that it will be using a 600cc displacement for its street machine, while giving us a glimpse of the bike without its F4 camouflage.

Pope Benedict XVI received a nice surprise today as Ducati Motor Holdings dropped off two purpose-built Ducati Multistrada 1200S Touring bikes for His Holiness. We don’t expect Il Papa to be riding the bikes anytime soon though, as the two Ducatis will be used by the Pope’s motorcade and Vatican gendarmerie (the Vatican police force), hence the special papal yellow paint scheme.

Yamaha’s factory-supported World Superbike team, Sterilgarda Yamaha, tipped part of it’s rider line-up last week when it announced that Marco Melandri would be making the move from MotoGP to WSBK. Now the Yamaha squad has released the name of its second rider, and we’ll give you a hint: it’s not James Toseland. Instead for the 2011 season, Sterilgarda Yamaha will be tapping into the young Irish rider Eugene Laverty, who is currently looking for a World Supersport Championship with the Parkalgar Honda squad.

Asphalt & Rubber has gotten some more photos from the 2010 BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials held at Bonneville last week. Taken by A&R reader Constantine Blias (color photos) and MotoCzysz friend Thomas Knudson (black & white photos), we get a glimpse of what the MotoCzysz E1pc looks like slammed to the salt and without its front brakes.

For Czysz, racing is becoming a family affair with his father Terry working the pits, and sons Max and Enzo helping push the E1pc to the starting line (MotoCzysz GM Ryan Taylor also pictured). Czysz concluded his email to us with this line, “…and yes — I rode and hope to keep riding until MotoCzysz is the Worlds fastest motorcycle.” Also photographed was Swiss motorcycling legend Fritz Egli with his 500hp Hayabusa-based sidecar.

At Misano this morning, Valentino Rossi debuted another of his famous helmet designs for his home crowd. Adorned with a painted clock on the top of helmet, Rossi will use a different helmet for each session during the San Marino GP. The time on the clock is set to five minutes before the session’s start, and labeled with “wake up and get going,” which for Rossi is both a literal and figurative reminder.

Critical of his results lately, Rossi is acknowledging that he needs to start turning around his season at Misano, and once again ride at the front of the pack. Hopefully these helmets (last year Rossi was the donkey) will be a reminder to the Italian rider, who has struggled since returning from a compound fracture to his leg.

Kawasaki will be officially be “unveiling” its 2011 World Superbike-spec ZX-10R at Nurburgring this weekend, but has released photos of the bike, finally showing the ZX-10R in its green livery. Team Green has slowly been leaking photos and videos of the new 10R through a massive online social marketing campaign, which centered around the company’s Next_Ninga twitter account.

Kawasaki is putting a lot of weight on the superbike’s shoulders after being un-competitive in World Superbike racing, and withdrawing completely from MotoGP. Hoping the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-1oR will turn around Kawasaki’s racing fortunes, Kawasaki is also hopeful that the bike will help spur its fading sport bike sales.

For 2011, Kawasaki says it has down a top-down approach to the ZX-10R, starting for the first in the company’s history with making the race bike before the street model. This hopefully means that the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R will be a no-compromises race/track weapon with turn signals, but we’ll leave that hyperbole until A&R gets a leg over one.

After holding an online contest to name its 125cc four-stroke based learner street bike, KTM has shockingly come to the conclusion that it should stick to its Duke nomenclature. Schedule to be the 2011 KTM 125 Duke, KTM debuted the concepts at the 2009 EICMA show in Milan. KTM’s plan is to engage young riders with the “Ready to Race” mantra, making them lifetime Team Orange riders with this stepping-stone model.

With a sporty street bike and a stunter variant, KTM hopes the pair of bikes will resonate well with actual mischievous teenagers, just as its done successfully with adults who have a healthy go-fast inner-child residing inside them.

Look for the 2011 KTM 125 Duke to hit shops in Europe sometime in March, and hit shops in the United States in…well…never. Let KTM USA know how much fun a KTM 350/450 Duke would be in the comments section, and check out the photos and video of the KTM 125 Duke after the jump.

Track conditions were the talk of the paddock this weekend at the Indianapolis GP, as riders battled the changing tarmac surfaces, and undulating bumps of the Indy infield. Perhaps most vocal of his displeasure with the course was Ducati rider Casey Stoner, who called the Indianapolis Motor Speedway not a world class track, and specifically complained about plastic drains that would catch riders as the ventured in towards the edge of the track (Rossi also complained of these drains).

Teammate Nicky Hayden was less critical before Sunday’s race though, saying that Stoner’s comments could be applied to many of the courses on the MotoGP calendar. However after losing a knee puck to one of the drainage grates that Stoner criticized earlier, Hayden may be re-thinking his tune.

The loss of his left-side knee puck meant that Hayden could not drag a knee for many of the course’s turns, which favors left-handers heavily. Obviously dragging his leathers despite the loss of the puck, Hayden says he could have made a better showing if it wasn’t for the knee puck becoming detached from his suit. Warning: If you don’t like seeing road rash, avoid the picts after the jump.