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| Kropotkin Thinks | ... that Peter Pan is still racing |
Submitted by Press Release on
Press releases from some of the teams after the second day of testing at Jerez:
Alex Márquez, the fastest and one of the most constant of the day
Submitted by David Emmett on
Aron Canet has topped the second day of the Jerez test for the Moto3 class, the Spaniard, riding for Max Biaggi's Sterilgarda Max team, just eking out an advantage over Bester Capital's Jaume Masia. Tony Arbolino was third quickest on the Snipers Team Honda, ahead of Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Marcos Ramirez.
Submitted by Press Release on
Press releases from some of the Moto2 and Moto3 teams after the first day of the Jerez test:
First test of 2019 for Brad Binder and Jorge Martin
Submitted by David Emmett on
Tony Arbolino has ended the first day of the Moto3 test at Jerez on top of the timesheets. The Snipers Team rider put his Honda - an almost completely new bike, with basically the same geometry and weight distribution - to the top of the timesheets and under the pole record at Jerez.
Submitted by David Emmett on
Motorcycle racing is a profitable business, it turns out. The leading UK financial paper Financial Times reported yesterday that Bridgepoint Capital, the private equity firm which owns Dorna, among many other assets, has hit upon a relatively novel way of paying out investors, by transferring the roughly 40% of Dorna which it owns between one Bridgepoint fund and another.
The proposed sale is a result of a review carried out by merchant bankers Lazard at the end of last year, with the aim of fixing a value and finding potential buyers. According to the FT, several private equity firms expressed an interesting in buying Bridgepoint's stake, including former owners CVC.
That sale is now off the table, it appears. Instead of selling Dorna to an outside party, Bridgepoint is now investigating setting up a separate, internal fund and moving it from one fund to another, paying its investors from the transfer between the two funds. The sale allows Bridgepoint to pay out Dorna's increased value to investors who put their money into the fund Bridgepoint set up to hold Dorna in 2008, after it had performed a similar maneuver between 2006 and 2008.
Submitted by David Emmett on
Sam Lowes has topped the timesheets at the second day of the private test for some of the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, the Gresini rider going over a tenth faster than Sky VR46's Luca Marini. Both riders improved their times from the first day by a significant margin.
Alex Marquez ended the second day as third fastest, and third overall. Nicolo Bulega was fourth quickest on Tuesday, but could not match the times set by Tom Luthi and Jorge Navarro on Monday.
Submitted by David Emmett on
Ahead of next week's first official Moto2 and Moto3 test at Jerez, a few teams are gathered at the Andalucian circuit to prepare the 2019 season in the lower classes. Present are the Sky VR46, Marc VDS, Kiefer, Estrella Galicia 0,0, Gresini Racing, Dynavolt IntactGP, Italtrans, Idemitsu, CIP Green Power, and Speed Up teams, making use of the fine weather in Jerez.
Submitted by Press Release on
After their launch in Malaysia, the Petronas SRT team issued the following press release:
PETRONAS Sepang Racing Team unveils new look for historic season
Submitted by David Emmett on
The FIM today officially confirmed the 2019 MotoGP calendar. There were no changes made to the provisional calendar released in September last year. There will be 19 races, starting in Qatar on 10th March, and ending in Valencia on 17th November. There will be tests after the race at Jerez, Barcelona, and Brno, while the first test of 2020 is expected to take place after Valencia.
There could be an extra test in the schedule, to be held directly after Silverstone. If the new Kymiring circuit in Finland is finished on time, the riders will head to Finland at the end of August to try the new circuit, and generate important data for Michelin.
The official calendar appears below:
Submitted by David Emmett on
The off season is a good time for motorcycle racing organizations to do a spot of housekeeping. There is time to look back over the year, and figure out what was missing from the rules, and what was unclear, an issue made more pressing by the number of rule changes in recent years. And so that is what the Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP's rule-making body, did, at a meeting in Madrid on 30th November.
Though it took a 3-page press release to cover all the changes made during the meeting, most of them are fairly minor in their effect. The biggest change was not even in the press release, although that is because it is a consequence of the switch from Honda to Triumph engines in Moto2, and from the Honda ECU to the spec Magneti Marelli electronics kit. That switch means that the Moto2 technical regulations need to be updated to reflect the situation going forward from 2019. Nothing in those changes is new, however: the changes have long been debated and agreed between the FIM, IRTA, and Dorna, as well as the suppliers and chassis builders for the Moto2 class.
