The MotoGP championship is on a brief hiatus as they prepare for the last four races of the season. The series was scheduled to race at the new circuit in Hungary last weekend, but the race was canceled due to financial and construction issues. The teams will be back in action next weekend at Estoril in Portugal.Championship leader Valentino Rossi has been in the news lately, but not for the usual reasons of winning races and championships. Rossi has made it know that he is unhappy with the re-signing of Jorge Lorenzo as his teammate on the Yamaha factory team. The eight-time world champion has won six of thirteen races this year, but his toughest competition has come from the other side of the garage. Rossi contends that it’s unprecedented for two top riders to be on the same team, and that Lorenzo is the beneficiary of all the work that he and his team have done to make the once uncompetitive M1 the best bike in the paddock. Rossi has gotten the better of Lorenzo on several occasions and he has to be considered the favorite for the championship, but he is feeling under appreciated by Yamaha. A feeling that led him to leaving the Honda factory team for Yamaha back in 2003. Rossi’s contract with Yamaha runs through next year when he turns 31, but the Italian always has other options. Honda has said that he could ride for them, he has expressed an interest in World Superbike and the rumors of an F1 ride in a Ferrari are always in the air. But Rossi is a motorcycle rider first and he is aware of his place in history. He is within nineteen wins of the career record set by Giacomo Agostini (122) so it’s hard to believe that he would leave MotoGP with that record in site. The question is, if he stays, where will he go?
One more rider has fallen into to place in the season ending contest of musical chairs. After putting together his best season in MotoGP Randy DePuniet has re-signed with the LCR Honda team. The French rider was one of the more consistent riders in the championship this year, and in an interview with motomatters.com he put his improvement down to the move to Bridgestone tires and a new training program. A motocross training accident that left him with a severely broken ankle has hurt his results of late, but there’s no reason to think that he won’t return to form once his body has healed. The good news for DePuniet and the LCR team is that Honda has said that they will be selling factory spec equipment to their satellite teams next year.
There’s still no word on who will be riding the second Tech 3 Yamaha alongside Colin Edwards next season. The latest rumors have Ben Spies moving to the team in 2010 whether he wins the World Superbike Championship or not, but there’s been no official confirmation of that from Yamaha. It seems likely that James Toseland will be back in World Superbike next season, and that Chris Vermuelen will follow him back to the series where they both made their names.
The remaining question marks for the 2010 season are at Pramac, Scott, Hayate and the new FB Corse team. Mika Kallio will ride for Pramac, but the second rider on the team is still to be determined/announced. Gabor Talmasci moved to the Scott team from 250cc halfway through the season and has struggled ever since, but no word on who will ride the bike next year. The Hayate team stated earlier that they would not return in 2010, but then there were rumors that the Kawasaki bike would be back with Yamaha power. The final spot would be with the new FB Corse team that is hoping to enter the MotoGP ranks next season. If they are able to put together a program their first season will be a struggle for the rider and the team. At this point the remaining riders left out in the cold are Toni Elias, Alex DeAngelis and Niccolo Canepa.
Marco Simoncelli is the reigning 250cc champion and one of three 250cc riders (Bautista, Barbera) moving up to MotoGP in 2010. With the series in the middle of a break Simoncelli accepted an invitation from Aprilia to ride the World Superbike team’s RSV4 at Mugello this week. After testing the bike at the Tuscan circuit and coming close to the times of Michel Fabrizio on the factory Ducati, Simoncelli has decided to race the bike in the World Superbike round at Imola this weekend as a teammate to Max Biaggi. Simoncelli has four wins in the 250 class this season, and is forty points behind championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama with four races remaining.
Brembo was keeping track of MotoGP riders braking points at the end of the back straight at the recent round at San Marino. Turns out that the rider who brakes the latest at the end of a 170 mph straight is the same rider who wins the race. Here’s the Top 10 Late Brakers:
1 Valentino Rossi
2 Andrea Dovizioso
3 Jorge Lorenzo
4 Loris Capirossi
5 Dani Pedrosa
6 Marco Melandri
7 Nicky Hayden
8 Randy De Puniet
9 Colin Edwards
10 Mika Kallio
Apparently Rossi isn’t just late at braking. After the Italian accounting firm of Cesaroni-Cappellini saved Rossi millions of euros on taxes he had failed to pay the Italian government the firm is claiming that the world champion owes them between 1.7 and 2.5 million euros.
