In the latest round of poorly-kept secrets emerging at last, Yamaha have announced that they have signed Michael van der Mark for the 2017 season. He will join Alex Lowes in the Pata Yamaha WorldSBK squad for next year, replacing Sylvain Guintoli.
The move had been long expected, as it became clear over the summer that Van der Mark would be leaving the Ten Kate Honda team, with whom he has had a long relationship.
The final piece of the MotoGP puzzle has finally dropped. Eugene Laverty has decided that he will be switching back to WorldSBK, where he will ride a factory-backed Aprilia RSV4-RF with the Milwaukee Racing SMR squad.
The departure of Laverty means that Yonny Hernandez will get to keep his place in the Pull & Bear Aspar Ducati team, filling the final empty slot on the MotoGP grid.
It may seem strange for Laverty to abandon MotoGP, just as his star has been rising in the class. Since Aspar switched from Honda’s RC213V-RS Open Class machine to the Ducati Desmosedici GP14.2, the older Ducati working very well with the Michelin tires, more rear grip helping to reduce the understeer the GP14.2 suffers from.
He is currently eleventh in the championship, and has a fourth and a sixth as best finishes, Laverty being annoyed that early traffic cost him the chance of a podium at Brno. It took the factory Ducatis on their brand new GP16s six races to get ahead of the Irishman in the championship standings.
So why has Laverty decided to abandon MotoGP in favor of WorldSBK? There are a number of reasons, but all of them boil down to a single issue: Eugene Laverty is a winner, and he likes to win.
On two-year-old machinery, in a private team (though with good factory support, unlike other satellite set ups), Laverty’s only chance to win in MotoGP would come when the weather acts as the great neutralizer.
Eugene Laverty took a calculated risk when he came to MotoGP at the start of 2015. The plan was simple: spend a year on a bike that was poor (Laverty was under no illusions that the RC213V-RS would be competitive) gambling on having a much sharper tool for 2016.
The gamble has paid off only partially. The Ducati Desmosedici GP14.2 Laverty has at his disposal this year is a much stronger bike than last year’s Honda, but the Aspar team’s financial troubles have meant resources have dwindled.
That has also meant top mechanics leaving, to be replaced with much less experienced ones. Fortunately for Laverty and teammate Yonny Hernandez, Aspar have finally secured a new title sponsor for the remainder of the season in Spanish clothing brand Pull&Bear.
That should ease the situation, and perhaps even bring them some help.
The rumors were true, and that means that Stefan Bradl will be moving to the World Superbike Championship for the 2017 season, as Nicky Hayden’s teammate in the Honda factory-backed WSBK team.
The news has been floating for some time now, with Bradl’s options in MotoGP seemingly getting worse each season. Couple that to what is being rumored as a very low offer by Honda to retain the services of Michael van der Mark for next year (an offer that expired at Laguna Seca), and the opportunity for Bradl to jump championships was set.
An added boon to the series, Bradl will bring some German star-power to the World Superbike Championship, something Dorna is said to be very keen about – German WSBK fans will certainly rejoice at today’s news, that is for sure.
Just two days ago we told you that Marco Melandri would be headed to the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati World Superbike team, replacing fellow Italian Davide Giugliano. That news has been publicly confirmed today, with Melandri set to join Chaz Davies on the factory WSBK team.
The move is a surprising return for Marco Melandri back into motorcycle racing, as the Italian took a hiatus during the 2016 season, after a less-than-amicable departure from the struggling Aprilia MotoGP team last year.
Melandri’s reputation as a racer, and perhaps his desperation to come back to motorcycle racing, comes with a price though, as the former 250GP World Champion is said to be forgoing a salary from Ducati Corse. Instead, Melandri is bringing his own money to the team, and likely has a performance-based pay schedule.
While the MotoGP grid is as good as settled, Silly Season for World Superbikes is in full swing.
With the Kawasaki riders’ contracts settled before the summer break, attention has turned to the other seats, most of which are up in the air. In addition, there could be some changes in machinery, with some teams eyeing a switch of manufacturers.
The biggest news – still unofficial, but widely believed to be a done deal – is that Marco Melandri is set to make a return to the World Superbike paddock, this time in the factory Aruba.it Ducati team alongside Chaz Davies.
Melandri has been angling for a ride ever since his departure from the factory Aprilia MotoGP squad, a move he had never wanted to make in the first place.
Over the past twelve months or so, he has been linked to rides with Yamaha, Aprilia, BMW, and Kawasaki in World Superbikes, and – possibly the most bizarrely inaccurate rumor to be published in a while – to a ride with BMW in MotoGP.
The fact that BMW have no intention of racing in MotoGP, and the break up with Melandri in 2013 so acrimonious that they would not have him back anyway is what made that particular rumor so entertaining.
Our man Kent Brockman (possibly his real name), sat down with Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea, to ask him how his World Superbike season is going so far.
Rea gives an account of his season, what’s been going on inside the Kawasaki Racing Team. He talks not only about the development of the current model Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R race bike, but also about himself as a racer.
The interview is a frank and detailed insight to one of the fastest riders in the World Superbike Championship right now, and sheds a great deal about who Jonathan Rea actually is. We think you will find the interview extremely interesting. -JB
There are good times to talk to MotoGP riders and there are bad times. Among the bad times are when sessions of other classes are on, or when other major sporting events intervene. Valentino Rossi’s press debrief on Saturday afternoon is one example.
When it clashes with the start of the Red Bull Rookies Cup race, Rossi can be distracted as he watches the opening laps on TV screens in the Yamaha hospitality.
Though Rossi is the consummate professional, always giving relevant answers to the questions we put to him, sometimes we have to wait, as fourteen Red Bull Rookies all try to fit into a corner where only three will go.
On Thursday, the press debriefs of the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha riders were up against the last twenty minutes of the Tour de France stage, which finished near the top of the Mont Ventoux (not actually at the summit: strong winds meant the finish was moved 6km from the top).
Cycling is something which MotoGP riders tend to become passionate about, as they do it so much to maintain fitness. And the finish to this particular stage became so intense that both Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro remained glued to the screen, as did most of the journos who had come to talk to them, including myself.
We talked a lot with the Tech 3 boys, but none of it was about MotoGP.
Well, not quite none. As I prepared to rush from Tech 3’s hospitality through the tunnel under the track to a press conference I was already late for, I quickly asked about the asymmetric front tires Michelin have brought to the Sachsenring.
“We’ll see tomorrow,” was Bradley Smith’s answer, followed by a comment that he was more happy that the French tire manufacturer has brought the extra soft front rain tire, as the soft had still proved too hard at Assen.
A win in Malaysia, three podiums, and sixth in the standings marks a solid start to any rookie campaign, but Nicky Hayden is no ordinary rookie.
As a MotoGP world champion, the flag bearer for the United States on the world stage, and one of the sports biggest stars, so much is expected of Hayden.
As World Superbike enters the summer break, Hayden has learned how to get the most from the Honda CBR1000RR, and has become a consistent top-six contender.
From the outside, it has been a solid campaign, but Hayden came to WorldSBK to have a chance to win, and even finishing on the podium isn’t quite enough for the Kentucky rider.
The WorldSBK season goes on its annual summer break, with the championship suddenly poised on a much finer edge than was imaginable just a week ago.
Jonathan Rea’s dominance of the current campaign has been almost unparalleled. However, his run of 17 consecutive podium finishes to open the season is now over, and suddenly he faces a threat from within for his title defence.
This is because an engine issue left Rea on the sidelines in Race 2 at Laguna Seca, and suddenly his championship lead had been cut to 46 points. It is still a comfortable margin for Rea but suddenly doubt can creep into the “Team 65” side of the Kawasaki garage.
Tom Sykes’ win on Sunday marked a return to the winner’s circle for the former champion, and while he is still an outside bet for the title, he is at least back in realistic range of Rea.
This paints an interesting picture for the WorldSBK riders to consider while they rest over the next two months.
