Latest News

The first part of the 2010 MotoGP rookie puzzle fell into place today at Assen. In a press conference, Fausto Gresini, owner of the eponymous MotoGP team announced that Marco Simoncelli had signed a one-year deal with the team for 2010. Gresini will have one factory RC212V again next year, and Marco Simoncelli must be the odds-on favorite to get that ride. But the competition will be fierce, as Gresini is also said to be pursuing Marco Melandri, while Spanish rider Hector Barbera is believed to be chasing the Gresini Honda rider.

While Simoncelli's talent is undeniable, the press release also highlighted another aspect of the young Italian. Simoncelli is highly marketable in Italy, and the Simoncelli deal was announced together with the extension of Gresini's deal with Italian snack manufacturer San Carlo, who will be staying with the team for 2010 as well. "Marco has shown over the past couple of years that he has the ability to be a major force in the premier class, as well as being a great communicator," Gresini said. Simoncelli's bubbly personality and outlandish hairdo make the Italian instantly recognizable and a huge hit with the fans.

Gresini also underlined that Honda also had a hand in the deal. "Honda rates Simoncelli highly, and believes he is a rider with great potential for the future, so Honda is very pleased that we are welcoming Simoncelli next season," Gresini said. With the so-called rookie rule preventing class newcomers from joining a factory team in their first year, the factories are having to find more indirect ways of securing the services of promising rookies.

The Simoncelli signing is the first indication of how this will work, with Honda supporting Gresini's bid for the rider. It also vindicates the reasoning behind the rule, with San Carlo quite explicit about their reasons for extending their sponsorship deal with Gresini: "Sponsorship decisions, besides the sports facts, are also about the people who make the team," Alberto Vitaloni of the San Carlo company said.

However, the danger remains that satellite teams will be forced to surrender at least some control to the factories as a result of the rule. The major manufacturers are likely to become ever more instrumental in signing riders to teams, and may even decide at some point that it's better to take control of the satellite teams entirely. The rookie rule will benefit the satellite teams in the short term, but it may prove to be a Faustian bargain in the long term.

The proposal to allow MotoGP riders just a single bike is close to being dropped, according to Carmelo Ezpeleta, head of Dorna. Under the proposal, each MotoGP rider would be allowed to have just one bike prepared and scrutineered for each weekend, instead of the current situation, in which they each have two bikes. Speaking to the Spanish radio station Onda Cero, he said "The idea of the single bike has just about been ruled out, mainly because of the success of the flag-to-flag rule, which we saw again at Le Mans and Mugello. I believe that the riders will have two bikes next season." But, he added, "It's not up to me."

The demise of the single bike proposal has been widely rumored over the past few months. The underlying premise of the idea was that the extra bikes which became available could be used to increase the size of the grid, but none of the manufacturers is inclined to increase their presence on the grid. Both Yamaha and Suzuki have flat out rejected any pressure on them to provide more machines, and Ducati is similarly inclined.

So far, only Honda has given any indication that it may provide more bikes for next season, with the fate of the Scot Honda team, where Yuki Takahashi and Gabor Talmacsi are currently sharing two bikes between them, likely to tip Honda's hand. Scot Honda team boss Cirano Mularoni is currently trying to squeeze at least one extra bike out of Honda for the rest of the season, and the response to his request will be indicative of Honda's attitude to provding more bikes.

The reason for the manufacturers' reluctance to provide more bikes if the single bike proposal were to be adopted is that for the factories, a large part of the costs of supplying bikes is in supplying the accompanying engineers to liaise between the teams and the factories. They may make savings on producing and maintaining extra parts, but these would likely be outweighed by the extra costs in personnel.

The flag-to-flag rule provides an extra complication. If the riders only had a single bike, then coming into the pits would require a change of wheels, brake pads and adjustments to suspension and engine management. The bikes would spend a long time in the pits, taking the action out of the race and heavily favoring the richer teams who could afford more mechanics and spend more time practicing with them. A proposal to solve this problem - obliging the teams to spend a fixed time in the pits, so as not to favor one team over another - has not found favor.

A starting line incident in the first race of the day at Misano has forced some minor rescheduling for the World Superbike Championship event. In the downpour currently playing over the Misano circuit, Italian rider Domenico Collucci stalled his Ducati 1098R off the line at the start of the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup race, and one of the riders from the back of the grid came through and hit the hapless Italian, ripping his rear wheel off and spreading oil and debris all over the grid. The race was immediately red-flagged (fortunately for title contender Xavier Simeon, who had folded the front of his Ducati going into the Rio corner while leading), and efforts were started to clean the track.

The new schedule just announced sees the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup race moved to the slot between the World Supersport race and race 2 of the World Superbike class, which is usually occupied by the European Superstock 600 class. The European Superstock 600 race will now be run after the second Superbike race. 

Here's the revised schedule:

12am: World Superbike race 1

1:25pm: World Supersport race

3:30pm: World Superbike race 2

4:40pm: FIM Superstock 1000 race

5:30pm: European Superstock 600 race

The fact that Red Bull is a huge sponsor of all types of motorsports, adventure sports and other forms of extreme sports needs no explanation. So successful has their involvement been in fact, that a host of other energy drink companies have followed their example, and motorcycle racing paddocks all around the world are now awash with sweet sticky taurine-and-caffeine-based beverages.

As the original, Red Bull has always been the largest, and its involvement in MotoGP has traditionally reflected that. The company sponsors both the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca and the Indianapolis Grand Prix, riders including Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso, the KTM 125cc team, and of course the Red Bull Rookies Cup, the feeder class for young talent riding identical 125cc KTMs.

But recently, Red Bull's supremacy has been challenged in the paddock. Their US-based rivals Monster have made a splash in MotoGP recently, sponsoring first John Hopkins, then the Kawasaki MotoGP team, and this year, the Tech 3 Yamaha team. The Californian energy drink company then pulled off the biggest coup of all, signing MotoGP superstar and marketing machine Valentino Rossi, reputedly paying over USD 3 million for the right to appear on the chin bar and side of Rossi's helmet, and on Rossi's cap.

Now, according to the ever well-informed Italian website GPOne.com, Red Bull are ready to strike back. The Austrian energy drinks company want to get into MotoGP more explicitly, and are looking for a team to sponsor. According to GPOne.com, Red Bull had been in talks with Ducati, first to sponsor the factory team, and when that failed, as sponsor of the satellite Pramac team, a deal which then fell through over the choice of manager.

Since then, Red Bull has switched its attention to Honda. The initial plan was to sponsor a satellite team, but this too fell through over Honda's reluctance to put more bikes on the grid for the riders which Red Bull had wanted to hand pick. But another alternative may be at hand.

Over the past few weeks, Honda has been making very public overtures to Dani Pedrosa, accepting much of the blame for the Spaniard's failure to win a MotoGP title, admitting the bikes they have been providing have not been up to scratch. HRC are very keen to sign Pedrosa to a new contract before his current deal expires at the end of the year.

One of the problems facing the deal is the role of Repsol. The Spanish oil giant is losing faith in Honda, after years of failure to deliver a World Champion - and most especially a Spanish World Champion - and is growing tired of waiting. Repsol and Honda are still in talks about a deal, the Spanish oil giant publicly saying they are in no hurry to renew, and their focus has been on improving the competitiveness of the bike.

Repsol's impatience may be Red Bull's opportunity. GPOne.com is saying that their could be a major sponsorship shakeup on the cards. Repsol may decide to desert Honda, leaving the path open for Red Bull to take their place. Both Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa are both already Red Bull-sponsored athletes, so taking a larger role in the team is a natural step, and with Red Bull more globally focused than Repsol, there would be fewer restrictions on rider nationality in any future signings.

So where would Repsol go? Repsol's priority is to be World Champion, preferably with a Spanish rider, and right now, there best chance of achieving that is with Yamaha. Repsol could take over Petronas' role as subsidiary sponsor, and poised to take over the role of title sponsor after the Fiat deal with the factory team expires at the end of 2010.

There's still a long way to go before any deals are done, though. If the new chassis HRC has provided for the RC212V works as hoped, and Dani Pedrosa wins a couple of races, then everything could be blown wide open all over again. The heat of summer is upon the northern hemisphere, and that means that MotoGP silly season is about to shift up a gear. These look like some of the first moves on that merry-go-round.