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Espargaro’s €600,000 Decision, Hayden Closing on Aspar

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Though the factory seats in MotoGP are all filled, the prime seats on the non-factory entries are still open. Top favorites among the riders are the NGM Forward team, with the leased and FTR-kitted Yamaha M1s, and the Aspar team, which will be running factory-backed Aprilias, though not as an official factory team.

These four are the most competitive of the non-factory bikes, and any rider dreaming at a shot of a return to a factory ride, with Suzuki in 2015 perhaps, will want to be on board one of these bikes. At the moment, there are two lynchpins around which all of the rest of the choices revolve.

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WSBK: Toni Elias Will Replace Michel Fabrizio

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The 2013 Moto2 rider line up is proving to be rather fluid. The latest in a series of changes to the line up is the departure of Toni Elias from the Blusens Avintia Moto2 team, after a season of disappointing results: the 2010 Moto2 champion’s best finish this year was a 9th place at Jerez.

Elias is part of a chain reaction encompassing three different paddocks, and stretching into 2014. The catalyst was Michel Fabrizio, who is leaving his Red Devils Roma team in World Superbikes with immediate effect. Fabrizio has had a positively mediocre season so far, his only podium coming at the season opener at Phillip Island, a great disappointment as the Italian started as an outsider for the title.

After financial disagreements with the team, which arose at the Silverstone round of World Superbikes, according to GPOne.com, Fabrizio and the team decided to part ways before the season was over, rather than at the end.

Elias will now replace Fabrizio at the Red Devils Roma team for the final four rounds of the year, at Istanbul, Laguna Seca, Magny-Cours and Jerez, with an option to continue in 2014, should his debut be a success, according to Spanish website Motocuatro.com.

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Nicky Hayden Testing the Ducati WSBK Today at Mugello

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Nicky Hayden is in Mugello today, testing the Ducati 1199 Panigale RS13 with Ducati Corse’s World Superbike contingent. The purpose of the day’s track excursion is surely a bid by Ducati Corse to keep Hayden in the Bolognese family, and to give Hayden an idea of the Panigale’s WSBK racing package, as the Kentucky Kid is weighing his options for the 2014 racing season.

The test coincides with rumors emanating from the WSBK paddock that Carlos Checa is reportedly looking for a way out of his contract with Ducati Corse, as the Spaniard has struggled to find results with the Italian company’s latest superbike platform. Whether Hayden is auditioning for Checa’s seat is uncertain (Marco Melandri is rumored to be in the mix as well), though we imagine Ducati wouldn’t mind having both riders on its WSBK roster next year.

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Takaaki Nakagami into MotoGP on a Production Honda?

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The number of riders moving up to MotoGP from Moto2 continues to grow. Pol Espargaro is confirmed at Tech 3, while Scott Redding is expected to announce a move at Silverstone, almost certainly to the Gresini team aboard a Honda production racer. And now, the championship-leading duo looks set to be joined next year by Takaaki Nakagami, the Japanese rider currently riding for the Italtrans Moto2 team.

According to respected Spanish magazine Motociclismo, Nakagami will move up with Tady Okada’s Honda Team Asia structure. Okada’s ties to Honda mean that Nakagami will be riding a Honda production racer, the same bike to be fielded by both the Cardion AB team for Karel Abraham, and at Gresini for Scott Redding.

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MotoGP Silly Season Update: Forward’s Privateer Yamaha M1s, Hayden’s Future, & Honda’s Production Racers

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With all of the prototype seats occupied for 2014 – barring a contractual bust up between Ducati and Ben Spies, which is only an expensive theoretical possibility at the moment – battle has commenced for the rest of the MotoGP seats regarded as being most competitive. While the factory bikes – the bikes in the factory and satellite teams being raced as MSMA entries – are all taken, the privateer machines – using Dorna spec-ECU software and extra fuel – are still mostly up for grabs.

The three most highly sought after machines are the 2013 Yamaha M1s to be leased by the NGM Forward squad, Honda’s production racer (a modified RC213V with a standard gearbox and metal spring instead of pneumatic valves) and the Aprilia ART bikes, which are a heavily modified version of Aprilia’s RSV4 superbike.

Of the three, only the ART machine is a known quantity, with Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet having raced the bikes with some success in 2012 and 2013, joined by Yonny Hernandez and Karel Abraham this year. Teams and riders will have to guess about the performance of the Yamahas and Hondas, though given the basis of the two machines, it is a safe bet they will be relatively competitive.

The most popular machine among riders is the Yamaha M1, naturally enough. The bike is a near complete 2013 machine, with a few parts excluded, such as the fuel tank, and will utilize the spec-ECU software from Dorna, being developed by the current CRT teams.

Given just how good the 2013 M1 is – Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi have won races on it, Cal Crutchlow has scored regular podiums – it is expected to be the best privateer machine on the grid next season, and anyone hoping to advance in the series is angling for a ride on it.

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Video: This is the Best Contract Announcement Ever – Guy Martin Re-Signs with Tyco Suzuki for 2014

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When it comes to turning the contract season into as arduous of a process as possible, the MotoGP Championship is king. The silly season seems to stretch from Qatar to Valencia, and we’re sure that if we checked at the time of this posting, we could find some intrigue for contracts in 2016. Oy vey.

That’s not how Guy Martin rolls though. If you didn’t know that the truck mechanic, and sometimes TT racer, beats to the sound of his own drum, well…then you probably didn’t know jack about the man from Lincolnshire to begin with.

It seems Martin is just starting to get wind of this whole internet thing, and found out that people were talking about him on it. This lead to his revelation that people were also talking about where he was racing for the 2014 season, and that just did not sit well with Mr. Martin.

Putting rumors to a dead-stop, Guy took matters into his own hands. Long story short, he’s with the TAS Suzuki boys (and girls) for next season, and believes he’ll be on the necessary package to find his elusive first Isle of Man TT race win.

If you don’t speak mouth-full-of-marbles, you might have to watch the video after the jump more than once — it might be the best contract announcement we’ve ever seen.

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So Long World Superbike – Jonathan Rea Making a Move to MotoGP? On a Honda Production Racer?

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Jonathan Rea may be the latest rider to move out from World Superbike Championship and into the elite ranks of the MotoGP paddock, as according to MCN the Northern Irish rider has confirmed that he is in talks via HRC to move into the premier class for next season.

Currently riding for Ten Kate’s factory-backed Pata Honda team in WSBK, Rea has been virtually the only rider in World Superbike able to ride the Honda CBR1000RR race bike with any success, as Honda struggles to make its race package more approachable for other riders, and more competitive against the competition.

Carrying a torch for Honda’s WSBK effort, it looks like Rea’s efforts will finally be rewarded, if all goes according to plan, with a bump into MotoGP being the ultimate prize — likely on a Honda Production Racer.

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Why Crutchlow’s Move to Ducati Is Smarter Than It Looks

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The news that Cal Crutchlow has signed a two-year deal with Ducati led to howls of despair from MotoGP fans, especially among those in the UK. Why, they asked, would Crutchlow willingly leave the Tech 3 Yamaha team and the as-near-factory-as-possible M1 to take on the miserable task of taming the Ducati?

Why throw away another year on a bike which he knows he can score podiums, and perhaps even wins on, in exchange for riding a bike which has been a proven failure since Casey Stoner last climbed off it and headed next door to the Repsol Honda garage?

If Valentino Rossi, the biggest name and most politically powerful rider in motorcycle racing couldn’t make the bike competitive, what chance does Crutchlow stand?

Though only Crutchlow himself fully understands the motives behind his choice, he has left plenty of evidence offering some insight into why he has signed for Ducati. Though fans around the world have tried to point to a single reason – usually either money or having a factory bike – the decision-making process is far, far more complex than that.

It is a case study of the complex thought process that lies behind the decisions a rider must make when steering his career. With so little time spent at their peak, and so many factors outside of their control, the decisions a rider makes are not as clear-cut and simple as the fans would like them to be.

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Yamaha Racing Signs Two-Year Contract with Pol Espargaró

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With Cal Crutchlow now confirmed to go to Ducati Corse (the team’s press release came in this morning), Pol Espargaro is now free to replace the Briton at the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 satellite MotoGP team.

Signing a two-year contract with Yamaha Racing, Espargaro will move up from Moto2 into the premier-class, and will campaign a Yamaha YZR-M1 alongside former Moto2 rider Bradley Smith.

Investing in the 22-year-old, the contract with Espargaro marks a clear signal from Yamaha Racing to develop young talent in the MotoGP series through the Tech 3 satellite team, and to have an ongoing chain of top riders on its factory teams for the considerable future.

The news also deals an end to the speculation about the Tech 3 team’s rider line-up, as Crutchlow, Smith, and Espargaro have been engaged in a game of musical chairs thru media reports. The terse announcement from Yamaha Racing is after the jump, along with the more lengthy press release from Tech 3.

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MotoGP: Cal Crutchlow to Ducati Corse

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After months of intrigue as to where the British rider would land for the 2014 MotoGP Championship, Cal Crutchlow has reportedly signed a two-year deal with Ducati Corse.

Taking the seat of the departing Nicky Hayden, Cal Crutchlow has finally bagged the factory position that he has been adamant about for the past season and a half. The official announcement is expected Friday of this week.

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