Toni Elias

As promised, the MotoGPMatters.com 2009 Racing Calendar is finally available for purchase! At either US$15 for residents of the USA and Canada, or EUR15 for the rest of the world (both plus shipping and handling), the calendar is a must-have for any motorcycle racing fan, and is the perfect gift or stocking filler for lovers of bikes and great photography. It is also an indispensable aid in planning your life so you don't miss out on any of the great motorcycle racing we expect to see in 2009.

The rain returned to Valencia on Tuesday, and the track saw little action, most riders going home. Only 7 riders hit the track in the afternoon, and as a few days earlier, Nicky Hayden was quickest in the wet.

The times:

Times from the first day of testing at Valencia. These will be updated as soon as official times are available. All times were set using the new standard tires provided by Bridgestone, with a choice of either a soft or a hard compound available. For comparison, see the fastest lap each rider set during the race on Sunday.

Times courtesy of GPOne.com and Motociclismo.es. 

Times at 5pm, the end of the test:

Fastest lap of each rider during the race on Sunday:

Though Toni Elias had already leaked details of the deal at Indianapolis, today, Gresini Honda officially confirmed that the Spaniard would be joining the team for 2009. And the specifics of the deal seem to justify Elias' decision to make a return to the team he left at the end of 2007.

For Elias is to be provided with a factory-spec Honda RC212V to campaign in the 2009 MotoGP season. This will bring the total number of factory Hondas on the grid to 3, alongside the 2 bikes which the Repsol Honda team will have for Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso.

With the amount of progress that Honda has made on their 800cc machine since its introduction, the factory-spec RC212V should be the best machine on the grid next year. With rumors rife that Dani Pedrosa has been given one more year to win a championship for Honda, or else seek gainful employment elsewhere, there can be no doubting that Pedrosa and his personal manager Alberto Puig will be putting as much pressure as possible on Honda to produce a bike capable of dominating the competition.

In the press release confirming Elias' signing, the Gresini team also confirmed a few other details. Alex de Angelis will be riding the satellite spec version of the Honda RC212V, though it remains unclear whether de Angelis would be given the factory spec bike should Elias be injured during the season. Gresini also announced that San Carlo, an Italian manufacturer of potato chips and other snack products, will be sponsoring the team again next year.

Due to personal circumstances - a long-deserved and hard-earned (by my wife) vacation in Spain - there won't be an Indianapolis race report for a week or so. Which is a real shame, as the race had plenty of incidents to talk about.

As a consolation, here's the transcripts of the podium press conference, as well as a selection of quotes from some of the riders involved in the race. Thanks to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and their amazingly efficient PR team for providing the information so quickly and smoothly.

For most of this year, qualifying has followed a reasonably predictable pattern. A couple of laps after his out lap, Casey Stoner would seize pole position, gradually turning the thumbscrews on the rest of the field. About halfway through the session, Randy de Puniet would be the first rider out on qualifying tires and snatch pole from Stoner. His glory would be short-lived, however, lasting only until Stoner threw on the first set of qualifiers, then the process would repeat itself, the only real question being how big Stoner's margin would be over the rest, and whether Valentino Rossi would manage to qualify on the front row.

The inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP race was anything but predictable, and turned into one of the most fascinating and thrilling sessions of the entire year. This may have been due to the fact that the session was the first truly dry outing of the weekend, with both Friday's sessions having been held in torrential rain, and Saturday's morning free practice session starting off damp, and only really drying out towards the end. And so for most teams, the first 20 minutes of the session were spent searching for some kind of dry weather set up, before they could even think about qualifying.

The session started much as expected, with Casey Stoner the first rider to crack into the 1'43s, but just 10 minutes into the session, the fast laps were flying thick and fast. Ben Spies, Sylvain Guintoli, Nicky Hayden, Jorge Lorenzo, Randy de Puniet and Toni Elias all held provisional pole at one point, as the times edged towards the mid-1'43 mark, and beyond. 

But with 20 minutes of the session gone, the really fast times started to shake out. Naturally, the first of the fastest was Casey Stoner, the Australian shaving nearly 3/10ths off Elias' time with a lap of 1'43.105, but he wasn't to be the only quick man. Just a couple of minutes later, Valentino Rossi took 8/100ths off Stoner's provisional pole, improving to 1'43.021.

Rossi wasn't finished there: his provisional pole was just the first in a sequence of fast laps, eventually taking pole down to 1'42.945. But Rossi wasn't the only rider capable of running fast on race tires. Nicky Hayden was running low 1'43s, smoking his rear tire in crowd-pleasing fashion through some of the long left handers, while Toni Elias was also getting quicker. So quick, in fact, that the Spaniard took his Alice Ducati to provisional pole with an impressive 1'42.741, 2/10ths quicker than Rossi's previous time.

The fall from favor of Luis d'Antin has done the team he previously ran nothing but good. Since the Spanish former GP star was forced out of the team, the team's fortune has improved vastly.

This is especially true for Toni Elias. The Spaniard has had two podiums in a row, at Brno and Misano, and has gone from being the man most likely to leave MotoGP to one of the premier class' hottest tickets.

For the past few weeks, Elias has been most closely linked with the extra Kawasaki that Jorge Martinez is likely to be running next year. Martinez, who runs the extremely successful Aspar teams in the 125 and 250 classes, is keen to step up to the MotoGP class, and having secured a bike to run, as well as likely sponsorship from a Spanish backer, now needs a Spanish rider to keep the sponsors happy. Toni Elias would have fit that bill perfectly.

The downside to any Kawasaki deal, however well funded, was always going to be the Kawasaki. From the most improved bike on the grid last year, this year's green bike has been a complete disappointment, with Ant West continually propping up the timesheets - unless there's a downpour - and John Hopkins stuck firmly in mid-pack.

And so according to sources in the Spanish press, Toni Elias has decided to take the safe option: Instead of gambling on a Kawasaki, Elias is said to have signed a contract with Gresini Honda for next year, and will make a return to the team with which he took his first and so far only race win.

The Misano race may have seen plenty of action on track, it is as nothing compared to the flurry of activity which seems to have gone on behind the scenes. In the shadow of the absolute bombshell announcement that Dani Pedrosa was switching Bridgestones effective immediately, a good deal of business went on as riders and teams sorted out more details of who as to go where.

The latest news to come out of Italy will cheer the hearts of a lot of MotoGP fans: Toni Elias will be back in MotoGP next year. He won't be on a Ducati, however. According to GPOne.com, the Spaniard will be riding for Jorge Martinez' Aspar team aboard a Kawasaki. The Alice Ducati team had told Elias he was free to find another ride, but after two successive podiums, that is a decision they are starting to regret. No details of the deal with Martinez have been announced, which means it is far from finalized, but Elias looks like a strong bet to be on a third Kawasaki.

Another deal which is said to be signed, but not yet officially announced, is the renewal of Alex de Angelis' contract with Gresini Honda. Fausto Gresini has had a tough time signing riders recently, as every time he looked to be close to signing one, they upped and signed with another team. First it was Marco Melandri who went on to join Kawasaki. Then, Toni Elias, whose impressive recent form had made him another strong candidate for the Gresini seat, went the way of Melandri, and headed over to Team Green.

With so few bikes on the grid, you would think it would be relatively easy to get into MotoGP. All it would really take is a sponsor with deep enough pockets to fund a bike, a decent rider and the team - with the costs for the team probably being the least significant part of the entire package. But the saga of Jorge Martinez tells quite a different tale.

Jorge Aspar Martinez, the owner of the Aspar team which dominates both the 125cc and the 250cc classes, has been trying to get into MotoGP for quite some time now. At the end of last year, Martinez seemed to have the whole deal sewn up: Suzuki would provide him with a factory machine, and either Ben Spies or Alvaro Bautista would ride it. It was just a matter of tidying up a few loose ends, and preparing for 2009.

It didn't quite work out that way, though. Suzuki's interest in providing a bike quickly cooled, after the Rizla Suzuki team failed to continue the progression they had shown in 2007, leaving Aspar without a bike. Aspar then turned to Ducati for equipment, but rumors emerged in the Spanish press that though Ducati appeared to be willing, Alvaro Bautista, the man Aspar wanted on the bike, had refused point blank to ride a Ducati, pointing to the examples of Marco Melandri, Toni Elias and Sylvain Guintoli. Discussions with Yamaha were also held, but proved fruitless.

At the end of the first day of practice at Brno, it was clear that there were two men a long way clear of the rest of the field. Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi were over half a second ahead of the man in 3rd, and the only riders capable of cracking into the 1'57s. The timing sheets seemed to tell a fairly clear-cut story of two fast men, a pack of riders all very close to each other, and another disastrous failure by Michelin. The grid seemed to be shaping up nicely.

The problem was, Saturday's weather threw not so much a fly as a whale into the ointment, after a storm front unleashed torrential rain over the Czech track, leaving the circuit completely drenched, though still ridable. With more rain coming in during the day, the grid was going to reflect a slightly different reality than Friday's practice had revealed, and confusing the picture even more, the forecast for Sunday is for the usual warm, bone dry conditions we have come to expect from Brno over the years.

During the morning's free practice session, Casey Stoner had already proved quite emphatically that he is probably the best wet-weather rider in the world, by stomping all over the competition. And as qualifying started in a light drizzle, he continued in the same vein. On just his 2nd flying lap, the Australian took a 5 second lead over the rest of the field, leaving his rivals gasping for breath.

No need for an introduction this time, just straight into more of Jules Cisek's fabulous photographs from Laguna Seca.

Typical Californian weather: foggy and cold

You know you're in trouble when you have to use intermediates in the dry

Of course, if you had Bridgestones, the conditions didn't bother you

Dean

Laguna's front straight, not long, but still fast

Last year, we ran some photos from Laguna Seca by friend of MotoGPMatters.com, and one of the driving forces behind the rideontwo.com forums and the outstanding MotoGPOD podcast, Jules Cisek, who many of you will know by the nickname Popmonkey. Jules' day job is "something in computers", an occupation which seems to be almost compulsory in his native San Francisco. But it's quite clear from his fantastic photography that IT's gain is photography's loss. Fortunately for us, he's allowed us to share some of his superb pictures from the 2008 US GP at Laguna Seca. And what's even better is that Jules' skill as a snapper is obviously improving.

The Doctor's bike at the Hard Rock Cafe

Names To Watch For: The Red Bull Rookies

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's poor Jorge Lorenzo

The big time: