Karel Abraham

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after an exhilarating French Grand Prix in Le Mans:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after qualifying for tomorrow's French Grand Prix at Le Mans:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after the first day of practice at Le Mans:

Press release previews from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone ahead of this weekend's French Grand Prix at Le Mans:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after the first day of practice at Jerez:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams ahead of this weekend's race at Jerez:

Press releases from the teams, Bridgestone, and the Circuit of The Americas after Sunday's MotoGP race in Austin:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after qualifying at Austin:

Press release previews ahead of this weekend's MotoGP round at Austin, Texas:

A fire in the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha garage in the small hours of Thursday morning has caused disruption for several teams at the start of this weekend's Austin round of MotoGP at the Circuit of the Americas. A lithium battery on a motorcycle starter engine appears to have caught fire, after being left on a charger overnight, a common occurrence in the paddock. Fortunately, the sprinkler installation in the garages put out the fire quickly, meaning there was no damage to the race bikes, and most importantly of all, no injury to anyone at the circuit.

There is damage, though. Sprinkler systems went off in the garages set aside for the factory Yamaha, Tech 3 Yamaha, Cardion AB and LCR Honda teams, soaking everything in the garages with water, and filling the boxes used to store equipment with water. Computers and servers were lost to water damage, while other electrical equipment is being examined for signs of water damage. The loss of the computers is inconvenient, but Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis told the media that they had another server which was undamaged, and a full data back up plan in place.

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after Sunday's race at Qatar:

Press releases from the MotoGP teams and Bridgestone after qualifying for the race at Qatar:

The MotoGP class of 2013

Their steeds, an eclectic mix of machinery

Press releases after the final day of testing at the IRTA MotoGP test at Jerez:

Valentino Rossi being fastest in a dry MotoGP session brought joy to the hearts of his millions of fans, but also relief to the writers of motorcycle racing headlines. For the past two years, with the exception of a damp and freezing session at Silverstone, the media - especially in Italy - have spent many hours puzzling over how to shoehorn Rossi's name into a news item without it appearing overly clumsy. With little success: "Pedrosa grabs pole, Rossi to start from ninth" sounds, well, as awkward as it does dispiriting.

On Sunday, there was no need for tricky sentence construction. Valentino Rossi grabbed the headlines the way he would want to, on merit. Under a warm sun, and a dry track - well, relatively, but more of that later - Rossi just flat out beat his teammate, and the factory Hondas, and all the other 24 MotoGP machines that took to the track for the second day of the test at Jerez. Beating his teammate, even if it was by just fifteen thousandths of a second, was crucial. That hadn't happened in any of the previous tests, and the gap between himself and Jorge Lorenzo stayed pretty constant: at least three tenths of a second.