MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
Sadly, our regular photographer Scott Jones couldn't make it to Valencia. Fortunately, we ran into Israeli TV commentator Tammy Gorali, who also happens to be a pretty mean snapper herself. She was kind enough to allow us to use some of the shots she took today during qualifying. Hello knees, hello toes Robot dancing attracts a particular kind of groupie Andrea Dovizioso has a specially designed helmet...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
Yet another unmissable charity event with a MotoGP connection, but this time in the dirt rather than on tarmac. Valentino Rossi is helping to organize a charity motocross event to be held on November 15th at the Crossodromo di Cavallara, in Mundavio, not far from Pesaro on Italy's Adriatic Coast. The event is due to feature a host of big names from the MotoGP world, including Andrea Dovizioso, Marco...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
Silly season for the 2010 MotoGP rider line up may be all but completed, but for technicians and engineers, it has only just begun. It started out in Australia, where it emerged that Pete Benson, Andrea Dovizioso's crew chief, and Daniele Romagnoli, Jorge Lorenzo's team manager, would both be leaving their positions at the end of the year. The attrition is continuing now, and most of the damage seems...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 10/27/2009
One announcement of interest at the Phillip Island MotoGP round was that Jorge Lorenzo's team manager, Daniele Romagnoli, would be stepping down from his role and pursuing a more technical and less managerial role elsewhere. Romagnoli, whose background was as a data engineer and then crew chief, was promoted to team manager to make way for Lorenzo's choice of crew chief Ramon Forcada. But like so...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
With the announcement at Estoril that Hiroshi Aoyama is to ascend to the MotoGP class aboard a Honda RC212V in a team run by Daniel Epp, the man behind the current Caffe Latte team in the 250 class, the number of Hondas on the grid for 2010 increased from six to seven. The team is to be sponsored in part by the Swiss iced coffee company Caffe Latte, but the effort is also to be heavily supported by...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
The 2009 MotoGP season has seen the advent of a remarkable period in motorcycle road racing. For the first time in perhaps twenty years, there are not one or two riders dominating the championship, but a grand total of four. On any given day, at any given racetrack, any one of Valentino Rossi , Jorge Lorenzo , Dani Pedrosa or Casey Stoner can win, sometimes by a few hundredths, sometimes by a few...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 10/04/2009
There have been a host of riders who have tried to ride the Ducati Desmosedici, and apart from Casey Stoner, they have been at best only moderately successful. This struggle, combined with Casey Stoner's unexpected illness, has prompted Ducati to mount a search for someone - anyone - else who showed any aptitude at all for riding the GP9. So when Aleix Espargaro was given the opportunity to replace...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
It's been a tough year for Honda. The season got off to a bad start with the injury to Dani Pedrosa, then when it came time for the team to sign new riders, it took a suspiciously long time to actually reach deals with both Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso, while rumors raged that HRC was also courting Jorge Lorenzo. Along with the rider difficulties, there have been continuing rumblings that Repsol,...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/24/2009
The MotoGP silly season is just about played out. With four races left in the season, the rider line up for 2010 is almost complete. As expected, once Jorge Lorenzo finally made up his mind, the remaining pieces in the puzzle fell into place, leaving just a few gaps to fill. All of the factory seats are now full, and largely unchanged, with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo back at Yamaha, Casey Stoner...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/22/2009
Randy de Puniet has been one of the revelations of the 2009 season. The Frenchman has lost his reputation for being the first to hit the gravel trap, and instead become one of the men most likely to get on the podium, despite having only a satellite spec Honda RC212V at his disposal. De Puniet's transformation is in part down to the spec Bridgestone tires, and in part down to a new training regime,...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/06/2009
After the official announcement earlier today that Dani Pedrosa had signed a one-year contract with Repsol Honda, we predicted that MotoGP's silly season in 2010 would the most frantic ever, as the contracts of all of the Fantastic Four - Pedrosa, Ducati's Casey Stoner, and Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo - are due to expire at the end of 2010. Little did we realize just how prophetic...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/06/2009
Two more crucial pieces of the MotoGP silly season puzzle have fallen into place at Misano, as HRC announced that they have signed new contracts with Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso for next season. The deal consolidates the basic agreement which HRC boss Tetsuo Suzuki announced at the Brno round in the middle of August, though the terms are different to those in the initial announcement. Neither...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/05/2009
The intense rivalry between Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo continues apace, the next instalment taking place on Saturday morning during the second session of free practice for the MotoGP class. After Rossi took first blood yesterday, Jorge Lorenzo set about extracting revenge, but that would be no easy task. Rossi and Lorenzo swapped the lead multiple times during the session, with Dani Pedrosa...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/04/2009
Valentino Rossi has struck the first blow at Misano, edging ahead of Fiat Yamaha team mate Jorge Lorenzo, with 10 minutes to go, then taking another tenth of a second off his best time to hold onto provisional pole. Lorenzo had dominated the session up until that point, only briefly ceding the lead to Dani Pedrosa, and hammering a whole sequence of laps in the 1'35s, over half a second faster than...
MotoGPMatters.com (Free subscription) | 09/03/2009
Silly Season is just about over in MotoGP: With the announcement that Ducati have just offered Nicky Hayden a new one-year contract for 2010, the available factory seats are all filled, with the notable exception of Honda. Andrea Dovizioso has admitted he is very close to a new deal with Honda, but most of the media and fan attention has been focused on the future of Dani Pedrosa. At Indianapolis,...
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