Below is the official press release from Honda on Casey Stoner's retirement:

At the start of the pre-event press conference at Le Mans, Casey Stoner made the following statement:

"Afternoon everyone.

"Basically, this has come after a long time of thinking, a lot of time talking with my family and my wife. This has been coming for a couple of years now, but at the end of this 2012 season, I will be not racing in the 2013 championship. I will be finishing my career at the end of this season in MotoGP and go forward with something different with my life.

"After so many years of doing the sport which I love, and which myself and my family made so many sacrifices for, after so many years of trying to get to where we have gotten to and this point. This sport has changed a lot, and it's changed to the point that I'm not enjoying it, I don't have the passion for it. So at this time, it's better if I retire now. There's a lot of things that have disappointed me and also a lot of things that I have loved about this sport, but unfortunately, the balance has gone in the wrong direction, and so basically I won't be continuing any more. It would be nice if I can stay that I will stay for just one more year, but then when does it stop? So we decided to finish everything as we are now."

In a shock announcement, Casey Stoner has told the pre-event press conference at Le Mans that he has decided to retire at the end of 2012. Citing "disappointment with the direction MotoGP is going," according to MCN's Matt Birt, Stoner told a shocked press conference that he will not be racing in MotoGP beyond 2012. The Repsol Honda rider said the decision had nothing to do with the birth of his daughter, and everything to do with losing his passion for racing.

The announcement comes just two weeks after he denied reports in Spanish magazines that he would be retiring at the end of the season. At Estoril, Stoner said that he had not made any decisions about retiring, and was still in talks about a new one-year contract with HRC. He even rubbished the reports, claiming that people "should not read what you [the Spanish journalist in question - DE] publish." However, sources close to Stoner intimated that he had not made up his mind at all, and that what had troubled him most about the publication was that by being forced to deny it, it would make it difficult for him to make a calm decision on his own. In the end, it appears, Stoner decided that the direction racing was going was not one he was prepared to follow. 

More news as it comes in.

Below are the press release previews from the MotoGP teams ahead of this weekend's French Grand Prix at Le Mans:

Below are the press releases from the Moto2 and Moto3 teams, as well as official tire supplier Dunlop,  ahead of this weekend's Le Mans round of MotoGP:

John Hopkins is to return to racing at the Miller Motorsports Park round of World Superbikes on May 28th. After crashing heavily in the disastrous conditions at Monza two weeks' ago, where he broke a bone in his foot and damaged his hip, Hopkins has been pronounced fit enough to attempt to race at Miller, the home round for the Californian.

Hopkins had originally hoped to return at Last weekend's Donington WSBK round, but the injuries the American suffered were simply too severe to allow him to race: Hopper's hip injury restricted movement too much for him to ride a bike competitively. Hopkins flew home to California, where he was seen by specialists to assess the damage. Fortunately, no long-term damage to the hip was found, and Hopkins was given the all clear to race in Utah, though he will have to undergo a series of painkilling injections to be able to participate.

At Donington Park, Hopkins was replaced by Peter Hickman, who until then had been competing in the BSB championship with MSS Kawasaki. But Hickman's acceptance of the ride was not taken well by his BSB team, and Hickman was sacked on the Monday after the Donington Park round of WSBK.

Below is the press release announcing Hopkins' return from the FIXI Crescent Suzuki squad:

HOPKINS RETURNS AT MILLER PARK WSB

BMW have been waiting for a win in World Superbikes for a long time. Ever since they entered the series in 2009, the German factory has been edging ever closer to podiums and a victory, but they have always proved elusive. At Donington, they finally got what they had been waiting for for so long, and more: Not only did Marco Melandri become the first ever rider to win a World Superbike race on a BMW, but his teammate Leon Haslam finished 2nd, making it a historic 1-2. The duo could even have repeated the feat in the second race at the British track, if not for some rather excessively enthusiastic riding on the part of the two leaders and Johnny Rea.

After the victory, BMW issued a press release containing an interview with Melandri and Haslam, talking about their historic result at Donington. It is reproduced below:

After the first one-two: Double-interview with Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam.

The longer I get to work in the MotoGP paddock, the more it strikes me how many talented people contribute to the show by working behind the curtain while a small percentage of personalities get most of the media attention. Rhys Edwards, whom you may recognize from his frequent position in Casey Stoner’s seat during shots of the Respol garage, is one of many people I’ve met who manage to perform roles of great responsibility while remaining friendly, approachable and warm individuals. When I learned something about his background in Formula One, I assumed he would have an interesting story to tell about his career and how he arrived at HRC, and he was generous enough to let me ask him some questions about his experience during the final GP weekend at Estoril.

Scott Jones: Rhys, you’re Communications and Marketing Manager at Honda Racing Corporation. Many of our readers may not know exactly what that means, so could you give a brief description of your role at HRC?

As it should be, what was probably the last Portuguese Grand Prix for the foreseeable future left no one indifferent. Torrential storms became almost a tradition at Estoril, so nobody expected this edition to be any different after seeing clouds quickly come and go over the track from Thursday to Sunday. It would hardly have been a surprise to feel the rain start to fall at any given moment of the weekend, but thankfully, it held off.

Media attention was focused since early Thursday on rumours of Casey Stoner’s retirement published by Spanish magazine Solo Moto a few days earlier, but that turned out to be much ado about nothing, even more so after Stoner’s magnificent victory on Sunday against Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.

But leaving aside MotoGP, with its high tech prototype bikes, and riders so close to perfection that it is almost impossible to overtake, the Moto2 and Moto3 classes gave the real action at Estoril with two thrilling races decided in the last few corners.

Waiting for Le Mans

Round four at the hard braking –or heart breaking - track of Le Mans for the French Grand Prix this weekend will see a new chapter added to the 2012 volume of the toughest Moto2 fights, featuring Marc Marquez, Thomas Luthi, Pol Espargaró and Andrea Iannone, the fastest men right now in Moto2.

Cheating in motorsports is as old as the sport itself. Whenever powered vehicles gather together to race each other, then someone, somewhere, will try to gain an advantage, either within the rules or, if that is not successful, outside of the rules. In all classes, and at all times, teams, engineers and riders have all tried to cheat in one way or another. Even the imposition of a spec engine in the Moto2 class hasn't prevented teams trying to cheat, and the paddock is awash with rumors regarding which teams are cheating and which teams are not.

The finger of blame is inevitably pointed at the most successful riders, and in recent months, it has been pointed mainly at Catalunya CX rider Marc Marquez. Marquez has a number of strikes against him, making him a popular target for rumors of cheating; firstly, Marquez is Spanish, and as Moto2 is a Spanish-run series, the non-Spanish teams are all fervently convinced that Spanish teams are not monitored as closely as they are. Secondly, Marquez has the backing of Repsol, one of the more powerful sponsors in the paddock, exerting influence not just over Marquez' Monlau Competicion team, but also over the much more important factory Repsol Honda team; the power of Repsol, the gossips suggest, exerts undue influence on the policing process. Thirdly, and most obviously, Marquez is fast, almost suspiciously so. The Spaniard's bike is always one of the fastest through the speed traps, and accelerates hardest off the corners. His team put it down to hard work at finding exactly the right set up for Marquez to excel. One of the lighter Moto2 riders on a well-prepared bike, ridden by a fast and talented rider? That, Marquez' supporters argue, is reason enough for him to be fastest.

To find out more about the situation, and what Dorna and the scrutineers are doing to address these concerns, I spoke to Race Director - and formerly Technical Director - Mike Webb at Estoril. I passed on the concerns that others had expressed to me about cheating in Moto2, and he explained to me exactly what Dorna are doing to monitor the bikes and ensure that cheating is kept to an absolute minimum, and that if it is happening, it does not pay. Here is what Webb had to say:

Press releases from the World Superbike and World Supersport teams after Sunday's races at Donington Park:

Donington Park is renowned for giving fans exciting races. 48,500 of them turned up over the weekend to brave the cold wind and watch the most exciting racing Superbike races of the year. Crashes, surprises, upsets and spills were the order of the day while history was made and old enmities revisited.

The weekend started on Thursday with a white water rafting experience at Hole Pierpoint watersports centre. Leon Haslam, Chaz Davies, Eugene Laverty and Sam Lowes all messed about in a dinghy while facing the artificial rapids. Every one of the racers fell in at some point and Sam Lowes may have ingested the local water and contracted food poisoning that ravaged his insides and threatened to ruin his weekend.

World Superbikes race two at Donington Park was a five-way dice that was settled in the last corner of the last lap in thrilling fashion.

A long fought battle with three riders fighting for the win.

25 years ago, Donington Park was host to the first ever World Superbike race weekend. A quarter of a century on, it still provides exciting racing and the opening World Superbike race was no exception.