Submitted by David Emmett on
Although most of the MotoGP world is awaiting the decision of Jorge Lorenzo, currently the largest log jamming up the 2010 rider reshuffle, a smaller block could soon find itself being shifted. The Spanish website Motocuatro is reporting that Alvaro Bautista has signed a two-year deal with Suzuki, and that he will be making an official announcment on Thursday.
According to Motocuatro, the deal will be announced by "a senior figure inside Suzuki" and will also see the announcement of Loris Capirossi's contract extension for 2010. This would see Bautista line up alongside the Italian veteran at Suzuki for next year, with Capirex retiring at the end of the 2010 season.
The impending announcement leaves Jorge Martinez and the Aspar team in something of a quandary, but the team must also carry some of the blame. Bautista signed a pre-contract with Suzuki last summer, when Martinez looked close to a deal with Suzuki to run a team for the 2009 season, a deal which eventually fell through after Suzuki decided against supplying more bikes for the series. This left Bautista already committed to Suzuki for next season, and subject to a penalty if he want to get out of the deal.
The penalty clause is not Bautista's main consideration, however. The Spaniard is known to be keen to join an official factory team, and Aspar's promise of promotion to the Ducati factory team in 2011 was simply not enough to sway Bautista's decision in Aspar's favor. With Suzuki exempt from the rule barring rookies from going straight to a factory team, the Rizla squad was Bautista's only option of a direct factory ride.
With Bautista apparently out of the equation, Jorge Martinez is left to fill the gap at Aspar. The two current favorites are Toni Elias, who will not be staying at Gresini beyond the end of this year, and Hector Barbera, the Spanish rider currently competing against Bautista in the 250cc class. Elias already has experience on the Ducati, the bike which Aspar will be fielding, but Barbera is from the Valencia region of Spain, and as Aspar's sponsors all have strong ties and strong roots in the region, that connection may just tip the decision in his favor.
First, though, Bautista's management are due to meet with the Aspar team at Brno on Thursday. Once that meeting has been held, then official announcements should be made, and another piece or two of the 2010 MotoGP puzzle will have fallen into place.
Comments
Barbera to Aspar?
Well, if it's true that Bautista is going to Suzuki, Aspar says that theres a 70% chance that his rider inMotoGP will be Hector Barbera and a 30% chance that it'll be Toni Elias.
http://www.as.com/motor/articulo/formula-automovilismo-deportes/dasmot/2...
congrats,,
,Alvaro. If Suzuki can give him & Caprix a good bike, That will be one team to watch. I like it more and more,,
Barbera is fast but not always, and even though Elias has had limited results on the Duc, it will be a version with 2 more years of development on it. If he can learn to lean the bike more to get heat in the tires, instead of scraping his arse on the ground for leverage, Toni could be the Faster1 of the two.
,,couldn't resist :)
toni the tiger
elias was the on ly other rider to get on the box, for ducati last year, and that was up until ducati started pulling back on the goodies, toni can ride the thing, and finish well, aspar would be foolish to take crazy hector over him.
And without a sound
Chris Vermeulen vanishes into thin air. Not overwhelmingly sad, but worthy of a mention!
So it seems, I guess we wait
So it seems, I guess we wait and see. He would be finishing higher than Toseland if he was on the Tech3 Yamaha, so if his price is right (i.e. if he really wants to stay, rather than go to WSB), he might get a seat somewhere. I reckon most of the team bosses would have some appreciation of his talent. If not, he will run at the front in WSB in 2010.
I think Hector has the right
I think Hector has the right amount of crazy to ride the Ducati.