#motogp

Dorna Sports officially introduced the FIM Enel MotoE World Cup, a new electric Grand Prix racing class set to begin in 2019 as part of the MotoGP tour. Dorna also unveiled the Energica EvoGP, a race-tuned version of the Ego that will be the used for the MotoE World Cup.

The 2018 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team has unveiled its new liveries and motorcycles in Madrid just four days before the first official pre-season test in Sepang. The presentation was hosted in Spain due to the new five-year agreement signed between Yamaha Factory Racing and Telefónica Spain, which will see Movistar as the title sponsor for the duration of the contract.

Superstitions are a funny thing. Whether they actually have an effect on an outcome or not is still up in the air, but then again there’s no real way to prove or disprove they don’t, so I might as well keep on practicing mine because, well… because. That’s just what I do! Call it what you want to call it, but I like to think superstition works for me, mostly…

The MotoGP season is months away but that hasn’t stopped Ducati from presenting its 2018 Desmosedici GP racebikes and returning riders Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo.

You don’t see this camera angle very often, and it’s really informative about the stresses a front tire undergoes on a MotoGP bike. What we have here is a testing session with  Danilo Petrucci riding his  Pramac Racing Team Ducati at Jerez with a forward-facing camera mounted to the bike’s belly pan. While viewing a video that consists of just a single shot may sound boring, seeing the tire squirm under braking and cornering is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Watching the suspension work is pretty cool, too. Go ahead, you’ve got 10 minutes to spend wishing you were as talented a rider as Petrucci.

In yet another testament to his greatness, Valentino Rossi has won at the 2017 Monza Rally Show. The Italian MotoGP star piloted his Ford Fiesta RC WRC rally car to a record-breaking sixth win in the 38th edition of the Monza Rally Show. This makes Valentino Rossi the most successful driver in the history of the rally which dates back to 1938 in Italy.

The final installment of this year’s diatribe should, one thinks, start with an examination of the season preview from back in February. Heading into Qatar, the conventional thinking was that Maverick Viñales, newly and firmly ensconced on the factory Yamaha, the best bike on earth of late, would challenge triple world champion Marc Marquez and his Repsol Honda – you remember, the one with the acceleration issues – for the world championship.

All season long, we at MO have been chanting the mantra, “Let Valencia Decide.” With the title unsettled heading into the weekend, the opportunity for a riveting finale existed (if only mathematically), Marc Marquez holding a 21 point lead over Ducati pilot Andrea Dovizioso as the riders lined up on the grid. The math caught up with Dovi on Lap 25 when, desperate to get past insubordinate teammate Jorge Lorenzo, he ran hot into Turn 8, ultimately laying his GP17 down gently in the gravel. And so the 2017 title was awarded at Valencia, having been decided some weeks earlier.

One does not simply walk off the street and into Honda Racing Corporation’s office, or any other major manufacturer’s building for that matter, and request to fill out an application to become the next MotoGP racer. Throwing a leg over a $2 million-dollar, 240-hp engineering work of art is reserved for those select few who were twisting throttles before they graduated from drinking out of baby bottles.

Factory Ducati #1 rider Andrea Dovizioso could hope for but one thing as the starting lights went out at the wet Sepang circuit – win the race and keep the title chase alive heading back to Spain for the finale. Trailing defending champ Marc Marquez by 33 points entering the day, he needed to cut the deficit to less than 25 to avoid having to endure another nauseating Marquez title celebration. By winning the race, and with Marquez off the podium, the 2017 title will be decided in two weeks at Valencia, and is more likely to end with a whimper than a bang.

Amongst a variety of other unveils at the 45th annual Tokyo Motor Show this week, Yamaha displayed its latest version of Motobot, Ver.2. If you’re not already familiar with the Motobot, it’s an endeavor that Yamaha and SRI International have put their heads together on to create “a humanoid robot capable of autonomously riding a motorcycle around a racetrack.” The project began in 2015 when the Motobot Ver.1’s first objective was to run a top speed of 100 kph (62 mph) as well as navigate a slalom course and turn through a corner. Check, check and check.

For the fourth time in five premier class seasons, Honda’s remarkable Marc Marquez stands on the cusp of a championship. His win in Australia last week left him with a short to-do list this week in Malaysia: 1) Try to finish no worse than second. 2) Try to finish ahead of Andrea Dovizioso. 3) If both #1 and #2 fail, lose to Dovizioso by seven points or less. Otherwise, he will have to return to Valencia in two weeks for some kind of decider. Probably the best thing for #93 would be to euthanize this title chase Sunday under the cover of darkness, many time zones removed from home, setting up a triumphal fait accompli return to Spain. We couldn’t disagree more.

Honda triple MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez survived a crowded, snappish, paint-trading lead group today for the win that now makes the 2017 championship his to lose. With Yamahas everywhere, and guys like Johann Zarco and Andrea Iannone bouncing around like pinballs, it was just another picture-perfect Phillip Island grand prix. The confounding Valentino Rossi somehow finished second today, teammate Maverick Viñales third. But having both factory Yamahas on the podium felt like a small achievement on the same day the team’s faint hopes for a championship came to an end.

For the second time this season, Factory Ducati #1 Andrea Dovizioso and Repsol Honda prodigy Marc Marquez gave us a late-race knives-in-a-phonebooth duel, a ten-point spread in the standings at the top of the heap at stake. And for the second time this season, Dovizioso prevailed in what was almost a carbon copy of the first win, a last lap exchange of fortunes in Austria. Now it’s Two for the Road, as the two “blessed” riders in this year’s championship, separated by 11 points, seem destined to square off in Valencia.

Once again MotoGP embarks on its annual Darwinian excursion through some of the world’s most exotic time zones for what is laughingly called The Pacific Swing. As if it were a square dance and not a grueling test of mettle and metal. One week at Honda’s glowing home crib, one on the windswept tundra of the south Australian coast, and one in the autoclave of Sepang. Can Honda’s Marc Marquez seize his fourth MotoGP title on this chaotic cruise, or will he leave things dangling for the Valencia finale?