Yamaha

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.

Valentino Rossi has always been something of a trendsetter, but some of the fashions he has introduced have been more welcome than others. One of his less attractive innovations has been the introduction of a dividing wall between his own pit garage and that of his team mates, a trend which was followed before the year was out by Dani Pedrosa.

The dividing wall was ostensibly meant to separate not the riders, but the tire technicians, to ensure that Rossi's Bridgestone engineers could have no contact with the Michelin technicians working with Jorge Lorenzo, and keep the data from the two team members and tire brands strictly apart. But since the announcement that MotoGP will be switching to a single tire supplier, namely Bridgestone, in 2009, the wall is no longer necessary for that purpose and could - in theory at least - be removed. 

Theory, however, is foundering on the rocky shores of Valentino Rossi's will. The Doctor has been very public about his desire to keep the wall in place next year, leaving him and his team to focus on the job of defending his 2008 world title. 

His Fiat Yamaha team mate, Jorge Lorenzo, disagrees. Both men were attending the Monza Rally Show at Milan's legendary Monza circuit in Italy, and while there, Lorenzo was asked what he thought of the wall dividing the two pit boxes. "It's Vale's choice, not mine," he told Italian site GPOne.com. "Now that we're both on Bridgestones, we don't need it any more, there are no secrets to keep. Rossi's attitude looks like a sign of weakness towards me, but he has won 6 MotoGP titles, I haven't won any. I don't understand."

Rossi's reply was fast, and clear. "There are two riders who both want to win the world championship at Yamaha," Rossi said. "The wall improves the harmony in the team, and it worked well this year. Why change?" 

When it was announced last year that Jorge Lorenzo had signed to ride for Fiat Yamaha, lovers of gossip and scandal around the planet rubbed their hands in glee at having two of the largest egos on the planet sharing the confines of a single pit garage. The widespread expectation was that we would see more fireworks between the two Yamaha heroes than during a Chinese New Year celebration.

So many people have been surprised by the air of if not quite harmony, then perhaps quiet acceptance of each other that has permeated the factory Yamaha team. Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo have rubbed along fairly quietly, without rubbing each other up the wrong way, much to the disappointment of the more sensationalist Italian press.

Fortunately for the Spanish press, however, Lorenzo has been reunited with a different rival, and one with whom that rivalry runs deeper and more darkly than any new-found dislike. For now, Lorenzo is pitted against his old enemy Dani Pedrosa, in a clash which goes back to 2005, and Lorenzo's first season in 250s.

The rivalry runs deep, in part because Jorge Lorenzo styled his on-track and media persona to a large degree around Pedrosa. Seeing the central role Pedrosa was starting to play in the eyes of the Spanish media, Lorenzo set himself up to be the anti-Pedrosa, and be everything Pedrosa is not. Where Pedrosa is quiet, focused and restrained, Lorenzo would be loud, brash and over the top. Fortunately for Lorenzo, he also had the talent to back it up.

In keeping with his character, Pedrosa rarely wastes words on Lorenzo, or any of his rivals for the title. But in an interview with the Spanish press agency EFE, Pedrosa broke his self-enforced silence. "We both want the same objective," he said, "and there can be only one winner."

Testing after the final round of World Superbikes at Portimao threw up a few interesting surprises. The first is that Shane Byrne was quick right off the bat, but as Shakey won the British Superbike championship aboard a very similar bike this year, he might be regarded as having a head start. The second surprise was that Ben Spies was so fast. Spies has changed bikes and tires, and so setting such a fast time after just two days of testing is fairly impressive.

Perhaps the most interesting time was the one set by Max Biaggi aboard the Aprilia. The RSV4 is a brand new bike, and the difference between the drawing board and the track can be monumental, as so many factories have found to their peril. So far, it looks like Aprilia have got it right.

The next round of testing for the World Superbike riders is to take place at Kyalami, South Africa, from 10th to the 12th of December. 

1. Shane Byrne (Ducati) 1'43.6

2. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1'43.9

3. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) 1'44.1

4. Tom Sykes (Yamaha) 1'44.5

5. Katsuyuki Nakasuga (Yamaha) 1'44.5

6. Alex Polita (Ducati) 1'44.6

7. Leon Haslam (Honda) 1'44.6

8. Roberto Rolfo (Honda) 1'45.0

9. Regis Laconi (Honda) 1'45.4

10. Lorenzo Lanzi (Honda) 1'46.3

Fastest lap during the race:  Troy Bayliss - 1'43.787

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight's New Steed

Heat

Spies: Swapping Mat for Max

Some of the World Superbike paddock got to head straight off on vacation - at least once their hangovers from the end of season party subsided. But for a few hardy souls, and a bunch of series rookies, work started on Monday, after the annual journalist blagfest which sees writers from selected magazines - some former racers, some just very lucky and very scared - ride the world's trickest production bikes around the spectacular Portimao track.

The busiest part of pit lane is outside the Aprilia garage, where people are crowded round the newest entrant to the World Superbike paddock. The bike has has one or two teething troubles, occasionally refusing to start, but since getting underway, Max Biaggi has been lapping at speed.

The other easy-to-spot garage in the otherwise quiet pit lane is the Yamaha Motor Italia box, where rookies Ben Spies and Tom Sykes are making their debut aboard the Yamaha R1. The interest in the Yamaha pits is twofold: On the one hand, there's the biggest name American to join a World Championship since Nicky Hayden went to Repsol Honda, and a promising and very talented young British rider at his side. On the other, there's the brand new, long bang, cross-plane crankshaft R1, currently decked out in skunkworks-style black carbon fiber, and looking like it's been rolled freshly out of Yamaha's Racing Department workshops.

There's plenty of other new faces here, too. Shakey Byrne is circulating on the Sterilgarda Ducati and is looking what the Brits are calling "proper fast". Eugene Laverty has taken over the seat vacated by the tragic death of Craig Jones, and kept warm by double AMA Formula Extreme champion Josh Hayes, and is learning his way around the bike and the circuit. 

Another newcomer is the Australian Ant West. West has left a disastrous season aboard a disastrous Kawasaki MotoGP bike behind him and is circulating on the Stiggy Motorsports Honda Supersport bike.

You need to find a corner piece to start

Clean room

E?

At the end of the season, Yamaha's top engineers usually give a presentation on the inner workings of their championship-winning M1. So it was earlier this week, but during that presentation, comments were made which were even more interesting than the notes on the MotoGP bike.

Shigeo Kitagawa, head of projects for Yamaha's racing department, told journalists that they could also be interested in supplying equipment for the new four-stroke class which is to replace the current 250s in 2011. "In the past, we had a near-monopoly in the 250 class with our TD 250 and TZ 250," Kitagawa said. "At the moment, we are engaged in MotoGP, but that doesn't mean to say that once the rules are clarified, Yamaha won't be interested in producing a low-cost machine, especially if it could also be used in national championships."

So far, the consensus has been that the 250 replacement class - due to consist of 600cc four strokes - will be Honda's plaything. But with Yamaha's long history in 250s, plus their failure to win a World Supersport title since 2000, there's every reason to assume that Yamaha have an interest in getting involved. Whether the 600s are as interesting as the 250s have been remains to be seen. But with more than one manufacturer involved, the class is starting to show potential.

The qualifying practice session at the Sepang MotoGP round was to be the penultimate time that the MotoGP riders were to experience the exhilarating and terrifying levels of grip provided by qualifying tires, scheduled to disappear once the single tire rule was introduced. But at the start of the session, it didn't look like they would get to use them at all, the rain appearing between the morning and afternoon sessions having soaked the track.

Two riders had made sure that they would use qualifying rubber, as Kawasaki had decided to send both its riders out on soft tires at the end of FP3. The team had seen the weather forecasts, and mindful of 2006, when the grid was set on the basis of the results in free practice, Ant West and John Hopkins had used one of their qualifiers gambling on the official qualifying session being rained out.

It was a smart move, leaving West sitting pretty at the top of the timesheets, shortly before the rain came down. But sadly for West, the rain did not come in sufficient quantity to wash out qualifying, and so the entire grid went out to start the afternoon session on rain tires.

What the riders found was a track that was wet, but drying very slowly, the tropical sun unable to penetrate the thick clouds, and so the initial laps were well off a fast pace, Shinya Nakano the first person to hold the fastest lap for any significant length of time.

The Japanese rider was looking very strong. Every time someone took the fastest lap from him, Nakano responded. His first serious time was a lap of 2'18, a time which Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner then bettered, before Nakano took the top time back again with a 2'17.905.

Next up was Chris Vermeulen. The wet weather master was into the 2'16 bracket before Nakano struck back once again, with a time of 2'15.686. But Nakano's dominance was about to come to an end.

As the halfway mark approached, Valentino Rossi took back provisional pole by a tenth of a second, before ceding pole to Nakano once again, then duking it out with this Fiat Yamaha team mate Jorge Lorenzo over who would start from the front of the grid.

This little contretemps took the pole time down from a 2'14 into the 2'11s, before Andrea Dovizioso started to get involved. The JiR Scot Honda rider was starting to take big steps forward, dropping his times by a second a lap for the next three laps. With just over 20 minutes to go, times were heading into the 2'08s, and the track was starting to show a proper dry line for large parts of the track.

At the beginning of the session, Dani Pedrosa's pole time from last year, a lap of 2'01.877, looked completely out of reach, but as the track continued to dry, and the lap times kept falling, suddenly, it didn't seem such a foolish notion after all.

The first day at Sepang was a strange affair, with weather playing a major role, as expected. Though the expected thunderstorms didn't roll in while the bikes were on track, conditions were hot and humid, and a light drizzle blighted the afternoon session for 20 minutes or so.

Valentino Rossi set the mark in the morning, the only man to post a time in the 2'02 bracket in the dying moments of the session, but in the afternoon, it was clearly contract time. Shinya Nakano dominated the session almost from the off, quickly setting the fastest time, a low 2'03, and once the drizzle started 20 minutes in, his time went unchallenged.

Most of the grid spent much of the next 20 minutes in their garages, venturing out only sporadically, with only the truly desperate putting in a lot of laps. The light drizzle meant that any data gathered would be of little use in either the dry or the wet, as times were several seconds off the pace, but there was not enough water on the track to break out even intermediate tires.

Once the rain stopped, and the track dried out, the garages emptied their riders onto the track in a rush to the end of the session. Everyone was out on track, people only popping briefly back into the pits for a new tire and a quick conference with their pit crew. And everyone was drastically improving their time.

It was a testament to Nakano's first fast lap that his time stood for so long. He was the only man to beat his own time until the last minute of the session, when Valentino Rossi came flying past, followed shortly by Casey Stoner. But even Stoner's time would not last, as it was Colin Edwards who ended up with the fastest time, putting in a seriously fast time on his final lap.

Colin Edwards' season started with a bang, starting on the front row of the grid, and kept on improving, bagging the Texan two podiums at Le Mans and Assen. But almost by magic, once Edwards had signed his new contract, his results took a nosedive, his best finish a 7th place at Motegi.

This performance, much remarked upon by MotoGP fans all around the world, has not escaped the notice of the bosses of Yamaha's racing division either. Various sources are reporting that Colin Edwards has been brought in and given a stiff talking to by Yamaha's bosses, and told that if his results don't improve, he could find himself riding an R1 rather than an M1. If Edwards' doesn't get his act together, Yamaha may decide to swap one Texan for another, pushing Edwards into World Superbikes, and bringing Ben Spies, already signed to race for Yamaha Motor Italia in World Superbikes, up into MotoGP to ride alongside British superstar James Toseland. 

Though the move may be a little harsh, there is plenty of reason to believe this could actually take place. With Michelin now out of MotoGP, Edwards' role as a test rider for the French tire company has disappeared, and his long experience with the Michelins is no longer a reason to keep the Texan in MotoGP. What's more, with all of the Yamahas in MotoGP now on the same tires, and Jorge Lorenzo and James Toseland both heading into their second year in the series, development can be shared out between four riders, rather than leaning heavily on Edwards for data from the Michelins.

After months of speculation, finally the deal is done. Ben Spies will not be riding in MotoGP in 2009. But the triple AMA champion will be leaving America: as reported earlier, Spies will be joining the factory-supported Yamaha Motor Italia team in the World Superbikes championship.

The move has been in the air for a while now. After Suzuki failed to secure Spies the ride in MotoGP he longed for, it was increasingly likely that Spies would look elsewhere for a ride. The American was linked for a while with JiR Honda in MotoGP, but once it became clear that Luca Montiron would not be given an RC212V to contest, that deal imploded.

Spies' motivation in the press release announcing the move is interesting, and worthy of note. Spies says "after considering my offers it became obvious to me that Yamaha would be a great home. Yamaha was excited about the possibility of me joining them and they just made me feel like I was coming into a great family. You look at how Yamaha treats its riders and how, even after their careers are over, they’re always part of the Yamaha family. That was really important to me. I’m looking forward to the challenge at hand and to work with Yamaha to produce a winning team and ultimately a World Superbike Championship."

After earlier speculation that Ben Spies was to take Colin Edwards' place at the Tech 3 Yamaha team, with Edwards moving back to the World Superbike championship where he won two titles, it looks like the swap is off. The British racing publication Bikesport News is reporting that Spies will be going to World Superbikes after all, joining the factory supported Yamaha Motor Italia team to ride the new long bang Yamaha YZF R1.

Yamaha's World Superbike team had already confirmed to MotoGPMatters that the team was interested in Spies, but BSN is quoting "sources close to Spies" that the American triple AMA champion has inked a deal to join Tom Sykes in World Superbikes. The official announcement is expected this week.

The move would still leave the door open for a swap. In Sykes and Spies, the Yamaha team would have two class rookies, neither of whom knows the bike or the tracks. Having Edwards move into the WSBK team, and pushing Spies forward into the MotoGP team would allow both Spies and Sykes to be partnered by men with experience of the tracks, making finding a setup for the bike that little bit easier.

For the moment, though, that's just speculation. That Spies will be on a Yamaha next year is virtually certain. That he will be riding in World Superbikes is extremely likely. But either way, Spies will finally have the chance to show what he is capable of on the world stage.

Since Colin Edwards finally wrapped up his contract to ride for Tech 3 Yamaha again next year, there's been little discussion of the situation at Yamaha, with all 4 seats firmly settled.

Or so it seemed. While the situation at Yamaha in MotoGP looked settled, the same could not be said for World Superbikes. The Yamaha Motor Italia team lost both its big name riders for next season, with Noriyuki Haga going to Xerox Ducati and Troy Corser joining BMW's fledgeling World Superbike effort. And so far, the team has only signed the British Superbikes star Tom Sykes to fill one of the seats.

So obviously, speculation has been rampant on who is to fill the other seat at the Yamaha factory Superbike team. Though Sylvain Guintoli tested for the team a week ago, the name that keeps popping up in this regard is the American Ben Spies. After Suzuki failed to provide him with the MotoGP ride he thought he had in the bag, Spies has been looking elsewhere, and specifically to other manufacturers, to provide him with a ride on the world stage.

But along with all the rumors linking Spies to the Yamaha World Superbike ride comes some even more intriguing speculation. During the BBC broadcast of the Motegi MotoGP round, commentator Matt Roberts mentioned that there was a strong rumor that Yamaha were trying to persuade Colin Edwards to give up his Tech 3 Yamaha seat and switch to World Superbikes to ride their brand new R1.