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FIM President Jorge Viegas On Iannone Doping Ban: "Everything Will Be Published After The CAS"

Submitted by David Emmett on

Since the announcement on Wednesday that Andrea Iannone's suspension for violating the FIM doping code had been reduced to 18 months, there have been questions surrounding the verdict. In interviews and press releases, Iannone himself, his lawyer, and Aprilia had all contended that he had been found innocent of intentionally ingesting drostanolone, a banned exogenous anabolic androgenic steroid. The International Disciplinary court of the FIM, the CDI, had accepted Iannone's claim that he had accidentally ingested the substance by eating contaminated meat, Iannone and his entourage told the media.

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Crew Chief Diego Gubellini On Fabio Quartararo: Fast, Smart, And Mentally Strong

Submitted by David Emmett on

Fabio Quartararo at the 2020 Sepang MotoGP test

The announcement that the Petronas Yamaha SRT team had signed Fabio Quartararo for the 2019 MotoGP season was met with some skepticism. Why, the critics said, would you sign a rider with just a single victory to his name after four seasons in Grand Prix, and with two other podiums, both of which had come in his first year in Moto3?

Quartararo soon proved the critics wrong. The Frenchman impressed by qualifying in fifth place for his first race, and then again by setting the fastest lap of that first race after starting from pit lane due to stalling on the grid. Four races later, he put his signing beyond doubt, qualifying on pole and battling for the podium until a broken quickshifter took him out of contention.

Since then, Quartararo has gone from strength to strength. The Petronas Yamaha rider ended the 2019 season in fifth place, with six poles and seven podiums, two of which came as thrilling battles to the line with world champion Marc Márquez. He starts 2020 as one of Marc Márquez' main challengers.

Behind every great motorcycle racer is a smart crew chief, and Quartararo is no exception. The Frenchman has Diego Gubellini at his side, an engineer with over 20 years of experience in the Grand Prix paddock, including seven seasons as crew chief with the Gresini, Aprilia, and Marc VDS teams. In 2019, he joined the Petronas Yamaha SRT team to work with Fabio Quartararo.

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Coach Them Up! - A Closer Look At Rider Coaching

Submitted by Steve English on

WorldSBK riders are embracing the role of track spotters and rider coaches, but what do they actually do?

The SAG Team Moto2 rider coach Alex Debon at the 2019 Sepang round of MotoGP

If Tiger Woods needs a swing coach, it stands to reason that even a world class motorcycle racer needs a coach too. Gone are the days where riders eschewed coaching; now they are embracing it. In paddocks, like in any walk of life, keeping up with the Joneses is a factor of life. When one rider makes a change, it forces others to do the same.

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2020 Qatar Race Day Subscriber Notes: A Plan for Moto3, Why Night Time Is Tough On Tires, And Where Next For MotoGP?

Submitted by David Emmett on

The 2020 Grand Prix Motorcycle Road Racing Season is officially underway. On Sunday, we had two races to kickstart an uncertain and disrupted season. The star attraction may have been missing, with MotoGP sidelined due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus, and Italians banned from entering Qatar, but Moto2 and Moto3 delivered, as they so often do.

So here is what we learned from the opening round of MotoGP (the series, not the class) at Qatar:

  • Moto3 – why having a plan matters
  • Moto3 – harsher punishments are starting to bite
  • How the changed schedule threw Moto2 a curve ball
  • Echoes of Moto2's debut season to kick off the second decade of the class
  • Why the opening Moto2 race may not mean a lot down the stretch
  • What difference a change of management can make
  • How Remy Gardner's steel discs can light up the desert night as well as carbon
  • What next for MotoGP?

To read the remaining 3089 words of this article, you need to sign up to become a MotoMatters.com site supporter by taking out a subscription. You can find out more about subscribing to MotoMatters.com here.

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Emergency Subscriber Podcast: Talking Through The Ramifications Of Canceling The Qatar MotoGP Race

Submitted by David Emmett on

David Emmett talks you through the cancellation of the MotoGP race at Qatar. How did it come about, what made it inevitable, and what happens for the Qatar Grand Prix weekend. Also, what happens next for MotoGP, and how might the corona virus affect next few races. Finally, how does it affect how the series plays out, with some factories coming into Qatar with strong momentum after the test, and some still struggling.

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Qatar MotoGP Test Subscriber Notes: Assessing All Six Factories After Qatar

Submitted by David Emmett on

So testing is done and dusted – at Qatar, quite literally, once the wind picks up – and the pile of parts each factory brought has been sifted through, approved, or discarded. The factories are as ready as they are ever going to be for the first race in Qatar, at which point the real work starts. Testing will only tell you so much; it is only in the race that the last, most crucial bits of data are revealed: how bikes behave in the slipstream; how aggressive racing lines treat tires in comparison to fast qualifying and testing lines; whether all those fancy new holeshot devices will help anyone to get into the Turn 1 ahead of the pack. Only during the race do factories and riders find out whether the strategy they have chosen to pursue will actually work.

Fabio Quartararo at the 2020 Qatar MotoGP Test

So after three days of the Qatar test, what have we learned? In these notes:

Honda, from catastrophe to optimism courtesy of old bodywork

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Romano Albesiano On Why Aprilia Changed The Engine Angle, Satellite Teams, And Measuring Success

Submitted by David Emmett on

The 2019 MotoGP season was a long, hard road for Aprilia. The hiring of Massimo Rivola as CEO of Aprilia meant that the development of the RS-GP came to a standstill while he first straightened out Aprilia's organization, and allowing Romano Albesiano to concentrate on building a brand new machine, with a 90° V4 engine, from the ground up.

The 2020 prototype of the Aprilia RS-GP, at the Sepang MotoGP test

It was a major gamble. Aprilia was throwing away four years of development in MotoGP, and starting almost from scratch again. The Noale factory had a lot of new data to go on, but they had to make the right choices in so many areas that it would be easy to find themselves chasing down a blind alley.

The gamble seems to have paid off handsomely. Aleix Espargaro and Aprilia test rider Bradley Smith were wildly enthusiastic about the new RS-GP. "I didn't really expect that with a bike as new as this, that I would be as competitive as I am," Espargaro said. "Even with 20 laps on the tires, I can do 1'59s, it's unbelievable how fast I was. I think that with this RS-GP, the bike is a lot more close to the podium."

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