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Rossi Completes Testing at Misano

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Valentino Rossi completed 26 laps of testing today at Misano, while on-board a World Superbike spec 2010 Yamaha YZF-R1. After being off a motorcycle for nearly a month, Rossi and Fiat-Yamaha hoped to assess today how the Italian rider’s broken right leg has progressed since its injury on June 5th at Mugello. Rossi did an initial run of 11 laps on the R1 late in the afternoon, with a best time of 1’41.00. An hour later, the Champion did a second session of 15 laps, improving on his time by 3 seconds, with a best time of 1’38.200. Although pleased with the test, there’s still some debated on when Rossi will return to MotoGP racing.

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Racing

Rossi Decision Expected at Catalunya

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News regarding Valentino Rossi is at a fever pitch, as it is expected the Italian rider will announce at the Catalan GP his intentions on where he will race in next season. For weeks, if not months now, Rossi has been linked to a very lucrative €15 million deal with Ducati Corse, while Fiat-Yamaha have reportedly scaled back their offer on the GP Champions from his current €14 million salary to €9 million.

Paddock gossip has said that Rossi has been considering both offers; however, at Barcelona we should finally know the answer to what team Rossi has picked, but some sources are already claiming they know the answer.

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News

MotoGP TV Ratings Continue to Drop Without Rossi

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TV ratings for the Dutch TT at Assen are in for the Italian TV market (one of the largest markets for MotoGP), and once again they show a decline in MotoGP’s allure without Valentino Rossi. With 2,579,000 viewers, making up 16.79% of the total television audience, MotoGP in Holland attracted only half the audience from last year’s event (5,249,000 viewers, 31.69% of the total television audience). With a similar trend in 125GP and Moto2, some in the Italian press are calling for Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta’s resignation, as these ratings are surely a sign of the sport’s demise.

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Racing

Our Test Rider is Faster than Your Test Rider

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After the collective groan that emanated from MotoGP fans around the world when Wataru Yoshikawa was announced as Valentino Rossi’s replacement, Interwetten Honda is feeling a bit frisky about MotoGP’s next stop at Barcelona for the Catalan GP.

As such the team has challenged the Fiat-Yamaha substitute rider to battle with their own replacement for Hiroshi Aoyama: Kousuke Akiyoshi. With neither rider likely to make much of a showing against the MotoGP usuals, Interwetten Honda boss Daniel Epp sees a battle of the backmarkers as a way to spice up the race.

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Rumors

Silly Season: Ducati Offers Rossi €15 Million & Benefits – Yamaha Reduces Salary to €9 Million

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The Italian press is buzzing about the latest silly season info regarding Valentino Rossi, and where he will be racing next year. According to Corriere dello Sport, Ducati has upped their offer to Rossi to €15 million and has included provisions that would allow the Italian to race later with either Ferrari F1 or Fiat Rally teams once he’s finished with motorcycle racing.

Now…you’d expect Yamaha to up its ante on the nine-time World Champion, right? Not quite. Instead Yamaha has reduced Valentino’s Rossi contract price from the €14 million they current pay him each year to €9 million. More on the reasoning behind that after the jump.

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Racing

Official: Yamaha Test Rider Wataru Yoshikawa Will Replace Valentino Rossi at Fiat-Yamaha

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Yamaha has officially announced that factory test rider Wataru Yoshikawa will be replacing Valentino Rossi at the next rounds of the MotoGP series, starting at the Catalan GP in Barcelona. The move comes after much speculation was created about whom would take the place of the Italian GP Champion, after his crash at Mugello. Yoshikawa is a former Japanese SBK Champion (1994 & 1999), and his ridden as a GP wild card numerous times for Yamaha.

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News

MotoGP Television Viewership Drops with Rossi Gone

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The British GP was the first full GP weekend without The Doctor present to charm the television with his media moxie (did we mention his crash was “worth” $8 million?), and as such we get our first glimpse into what the repercussions are for MotoGP with Rossi out of commission. Checking TV viewership, MotoGP’s stop at Silverstone saw a 20% decline in total viewership when compared to the last two GP’s at Jerez and Le Mans. The result is that advertisers in some markets are asking the local stations that cover MotoGP to readjust there viewership claims and media rates to account for the loss of audience.

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Racing

Boom Goes the Dynamite! – First Podium For…

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If you haven’t seen today’s British GP at Silverstone, stop reading this article, and go watch your Tivo right now. We can hardly contain ourselves after watching the race, so we’ll keep this intro short. While the race winner is not going to surprise too many GP race fans, it’s the rest of the finishes that had us jumping up and down on our chairs. Spoilers after the jump.

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Racing

Rossi Crash “Worth” Over $8 Million

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There’s no doubt that Valentino Rossi’s injury at Mugello not only left a hole at Fiat-Yamaha garage, but also created a noticeable void for MotoGP racing as a whole. Perhaps one of the greatest GP racers of all-time, Rossi rarely crashes, and has never been injured so extensively before in his career. And for all the parties involved this incident, it is an untimely disaster that has financial repercussions.

But as the old marketing maxim goes, any press is good press, and with all the coverage that’s surrounded Rossi’s crash, a sizeable amount of “buzz” and media attention has been garnered for the associated parties. What is all that media attention worth? According to internet market research firm eXtrapola, just over 8 million in US dollars (over €6.5 million).

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Racing

Q&A with Valentino Rossi and Fiat-Yamaha

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With an overabundance of interest stemming from Valentino Rossi’s injury at the Italian GP, Fiat-Yamaha setup a Q&A with the team’s staff and Valentino Rossi himself that cover life in MotoGP post-Mugello. Find after the jump the responses from the team and Rossi, which should clarify a number of questions and concerns centered around the Italian rider’s injury, when he will return, and what caused the accident in the first place.

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Racing

Send Your Well Wishes to Valentino – Yamaha Adds “Support Rossi” Tab to Facebook Page

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Yamaha Racing has added a tab on their Facebook fan page that allows fans to send Valentino Rossi their support while the Italian GP rider recovers this week in the hospital.

Clearly Valentino Rossi is a huge part of the current MotoGP racing landscape, and has fans all around the world who wish to see the Champion return to MotoGP as soon as possible.

Yamaha is also one of the most media savvy manufacturers in the paddock, so it’s no surprise they’re using social media like this to connect Rossi to his fans while he’s in the hospital.

Follow this link if you wish to send Valentino Rossi a “get well” message on Facebook.

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