Ductalk

That was a chaotic weekend. Two-and-a-half days lost to rain, then a bizarre series of hold ups and incidents on the start of the MotoGP grid that ended up eventually going a long way to deciding the championship. Fortunately for the series, the MotoGP race was preceded by two scintillating support races, and then the MotoGP race itself saw two very popular podiums.

To start with the biggest issue, the start and then the restart of the MotoGP race. There was a lot of confusion and head-scratching over what was going on - the riders had never seen the flashing amber lights on the starting panels, for one - but when the dust settled, it looked like everything had been run almost by the numbers, despite the protests from Dani Pedrosa's camp.

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Casey Stoner was back on the bike at Sepang and immediately topped the pile. The Repsol Honda rider got his first taste of the RC213V on Wednesday, after missing the first day of testing with a recurrence of an old back problem, and was soon up to speed, ending the day on top of the timesheets and around three quarters of a second faster than Jorge Lorenzo's best time from Tuesday. The Yamahas remain strong, however: Ben Spies had the 2nd fastest time - he was briefly logged as fastest, but it emerged that his lap of 1'58.150 had been set on a flying lap after a practice start from pit lane exit, cutting a good deal of the front straight - sixteen hundredths behind Stoner, with his factory Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo just sixteen thousandths behind him.

Dani Pedrosa was fourth fastest of the day, taking half a second off his time from yesterday, and ending up six tenths behind Repsol teammate Stoner, and just ahead of the third Yamaha, that of Cal Crutchlow. The Monster Tech 3 man continues to impress, ending the day two thirds of a second behind Stoner and under six hundredths behind Pedrosa. Hector Barbera was the fastest of the Ducati, just edging ahead of Valentino Rossi at the end, though his time was once again set by following Rossi around and getting a tow....more

With the news coming out today that Ant West will not be able to make the grid for the 2012 motor GP season, due to his inability to find funding for his ride, brings up an interesting take on where the sport of MotoGP, motorcycle racing, and motor sports in general fits in with life today in our current economic environment.

Young riders coming up today, and even current riders, need to understand that they are no longer being paid to race. This is a major change in mindset, what they are paid to do is work as a marketing tool for their sponsors and patrons. For most of the history of athletics and motorsports, one of two things had to happen for you to compete, you either were either wealthy, or, you had to have a wealthy patron. Patron, another term for sponsor, is something that disappeared, for the most part, post-World War II on a personal level. Post World War II sponsorship came from corporations rather than people though that really didn't become visible until the 1960s with the Lotus Formula One team....more

While Filippo Preziosi played his cards tantalizingly close to his chest at the Wrooom event, where Ducati launched their 2012 MotoGP challenger for the Marlboro Ducati factory team, satellite squad Cardion AB is being a lot more loose-lipped. Today, the team, which will be running Karel Abraham again in the MotoGP class, issued a press release full of some fascinating details about the satellite Ducati GP12 which Abraham will be racing this season.

According to the press release, the bike produces 250 horsepower, 15 hp up from the 800cc GP11 Abraham raced in 2011. Top speed is up also, from 340 km/h for the 800cc GP11 to 360 km/h (or nearly 235 mph) for the GP12. Both numbers are in the region expected, though numbers released through the factories tend to be intentionally inaccurate. Whether factory numbers are optimistic or pessimistic - and by how much - is left very much to the imagination of the reader...lots more on the link...

Lots of info coming out of WROOM but as always Motomatters recap's the day best....

Despite the loss of the factory Yamaha team, the World Superbike series is still in relatively good health, considering the financial crisis. Though the days of 30+ rider grids are gone, grid size has stabilized at around the 22 rider mark, 1 up from last year, while there are still 6 manufacturers present, Aprilia, BMW, Ducati and Kawasaki in an official capacity, Honda unofficially via Ten Kate, and Suzuki absent, with Crescent working with Yoshimura on their own bikes.

The field has seen some changes, though most of the title favorites are staying with the teams they were with in 2011. Carlos Checa remains with Althea Ducati, though the effort expands to include 2011 Superstock champ Davide Giugliano, while Max Biaggi is in the second year of his 2-year contract with Aprilia, and Johnny Rea is staying with the Ten Kate Honda squad....more

Ducati Corse director and Ducati's engineering guru Filippo Preziosi was a busy man at Misano. Besides overseeing the race weekend at the circuit and preparing for the test on Monday, Preziosi spent a lot of time talking to a number of journalists. MotoMatters.com was one of the lucky few who were offered ten minutes with Preziosi, and so we jumped at the chance. In the interview, Preziosi covered a number of topics: the Ducati junior team strategy, Ducati's four riders for 2013, the current and expected developments for next season were all among the subjects discussed. Preziosi also talked about the effect of the spec ECU which will be introduced for 2014, and gave the impression he was not necessarily opposed to the idea. Below is what Preziosi had to say to us:

To read the interview click HERE

It is ironic that the high point of the relationship between Valentino Rossi and Ducati came as he rode the first few meters out of pit lane and on to the track at the Valencia MotoGP test in November 2010. All of the excitement that had been building since the first rumors emerged in early June that the nine time world champion would be leaving Yamaha to join the iconic Italian manufacturer culminated as Rossi emerged from a crowd of photographers and powered down pit lane, watched by a large group of fans who had come to the test to see this very moment.

From that point on, it was all downhill. Within a few laps, it was clear that Rossi would struggle with this bike, and though everyone was putting a brave face on his performance, he left the test in 15th place, one-and-three-quarters of a second behind his ex-teammate Jorge Lorenzo, and 1.7 seconds behind Casey Stoner, the man whose bike he was now riding and who had left Ducati to join Honda. The contrast between the two could not be greater: where Stoner was bullying the Honda around as if he had been born on the RC212V, Rossi - handicapped in part by his still-injured shoulder - looked like a frightened rookie, thoroughly intimidated by the bike. ...More here: http://www.motomatters.com/opinion/2012/04/17/between_the_devil_and_the_deep_blue_sea_.html

The MotoGP bikes have been back in action for three days now - four, if you count Randy de Puniet and the other Aprilia ART (as Aprilia's CRT bike is called) riders' outing at Valencia - and fans and followers now have some real meat to chew over. The days of endless speculation based on nothing more than ill-informed gossip and rumor is over; the days of endless speculation based on slightly better-informed gossip, rumor and lap times are here.

So what preliminary conclusions can we draw from the test at Sepang? Has the Ducati really been fixed? Are the 1000s going to provide more exciting racing? Will the Honda be as dominant this year as it was last? Can Jorge Lorenzo take the fight to Casey Stoner? Do the times set by the CRT bikes mean that the project is a failure? Wouldn't it be nice if we could provide a simple yes-or-no answer to all of these questions?...more

The missing star of Ducati's Wrooom launch event is to make its debut behind closed doors tomorrow. Ducati test rider Franco Battaini and 2011 World Superbike champion Carlos Checa are to take the redesigned GP12 for its first shakedown test at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain tomorrow, under the watchful gaze of team boss Vitto Guareschi. Once the test has been concluded, the new Desmosedicis - freshly assembled by Ducati's team at their Bologna factory last week - will be shipped to Malaysia for the first official MotoGP tests to be held at Sepang, where factory riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi will get their first ride on the bike....more