The 2019 Moto2 Championship is rapidly approaching, and next year’s season sees the introduction of a new spec-engine platform. Using a 765cc three-cylinder engine from Triumph, Moto2 competitors have begun testing their new chassis designs for the British triple.

Out in Aragon, we get our first glimpse of the front-running race bike providers: Kalex, KTM, and NTS, as well as Triumph’s own test mule, which uses a Daytona 675 chassis.

Shaking down their machines ahead of the start of next season, bike manufacturers focused on learning the new race engine and its accompanying spec-ECU.

The Kalex was ridden by Moto2 racer Alex Marquez and test rider Jesko Raffin; on the KTM was Julian Simon (2009 125cc World Champion and Moto2 runner-up) and test rider Ricky Cardús; and on the NTS was Moto2/MotoGP veteran Alex de Angelis.

Lap times were said to be on-par with the current 2018 times at the circuit, which bodes well considering that only two days of testing have been done on the new machines.

Bringing more technology and power to the series, Moto2 is set for a solid performance bump in the 2019 season, as the championship series phases out of the Honda CBR6000RR based platform.

“It was exciting to see the new chassis and our triple 756cc engine together on track for the first time, and better still to see such a great first test result,” said Steve Sargent, Chief Product Officer for Triumph Motorcycles

“We are very pleased with the progress to date and impressed with the level of passion and effort from the chassis teams, the riders, the ECU team Magneti Marelli, Exernpro, and Dorna in developing the new generation of Moto2 motorcycles.”

Of course the big peculiarity with Triumph’s Moto2 project is the lack of a sport bike in the company’s motorcycle lineup – the Triumph Daytona 675R getting dropped as Euro4 regulations came online.

There has been much talk and speculation about the possibility of a Triumph Daytona 765 replacing the now defunct 675cc model, using the 765cc engine found on the Triumph Street Triple RS.

Our sources tell us that is not to be, however, with no Daytona 765 in the works for the 2019 model year.

Triumph Daytona Moto2 Test Mule

KTM Moto2 Race Bike

Kalex Moto2 Race Bike

NTS Moto2 Race Bike

Source: Triumph

MotoGP Race Results from the Dutch TT at Assen, The Netherlands:

Source: MotoGP

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How close is MotoGP right now? At the end of FP3 on Saturday morning, the top five bikes were separated by 0.062 seconds. The top three had just six thousandths of a second between them.

And the difference between Marc Márquez and Maverick Viñales, first and second in FP3? Just one thousandth of a second. If they were both lapping at the same time, it would have needed the special finish line camera to separate them.

It was pretty close behind the top five as well. There were sixteen riders within nine tenths of Márquez, gaps between them counted in hundredths of seconds, rather than thousandths of seconds.

Qualifying was much the same: the difference between pole and eleventh place on the grid was just half a second. If you made a mistake in two corners, costing you a tenth or so in each, you would have ended up starting from the third row, rather than the front row.

It was even worse for riders who hadn’t made it straight through to Q2. If Jack Miller had been a six hundredths faster in FP3, he could have ended up tenth instead of twelfth, and not have to go to Q1.

If he had been eight hundredths of a second faster in Q1, he would have been through to Q2, and not starting from sixteenth on the grid. But why pick on Miller? Taka Nakagami missed out on going to Q2 by a couple of hundredths, Tito Rabat and Hafizh Syahrin by seven hundredths.

Even Scott Redding, starting from seventeenth, was just four tenths off going to Q2. That is quite literally just the blink of an eye.

Seriously Serious

Why is everything so close? The bikes are much closer in performance, of course, a result of the changes to the technical regulations over the past seven seasons, but as Valentino Rossi explained, a lot of it was due to the professionalization of the riders, and of the teams.

“I think this is one of the biggest differences compared to fifteen years ago,” he said. “In the last period, we are always very close during the practice, but this weekend it looks more close. I think that compared to fifteen years ago, the level of professionalism of the sport is a lot. Now, the team but especially the rider try to work on all the small details, you try to learn, try to understand corner by corner, braking by braking.”

Things were simpler when Rossi first switched to Yamaha, but that was in part because the riders did not approach racing with the same utter dedication and work ethic. “Fifteen years ago, it was more romantic,” the Movistar Yamaha rider said.

“So you ride your bike, you have your feeling, but not like this. Now you have to work more. Maybe it’s a bit more boring… But I think that this is one of the biggest differences and I think it’s good for the championship.”

But it is also the nature of the racetrack. Assen is a riders’ track, a circuit where a rider can make up for the minor defects his motorcycle may have. Riding Assen is like threading a needle, maintaining your flow, your concentration, and if you can manage that, you can make up a lot of ground.

It’s easier when you can use a rider ahead of you as a target, and chase them down through braking and acceleration points, and make up time. That’s great if you can follow a fast rider, but not so great for the riders who get out ahead of a group, as Jorge Lorenzo found to his cost.

The factory Ducati rider took provisional pole with three minutes of qualifying left to go, and was on his way to another good time. But he was being followed by Andrea Iannone, who used him as a target to leapfrog ahead of him.

He would end up qualifying in tenth, as Johann Zarco towed another group around who would all end up ahead of Zarco, and ahead of Jorge Lorenzo.

Leading is Losing

“I think only Zarco was the only one, together with me, who was alone,” Lorenzo said after qualifying. “The rest of the riders were like a train, every rider with let’s say the perfect space – not too close to lose time in a certain part of the track and not too far not to take profit.”

“They were like the perfect meters to be as fast as possible, and everyone more or less the same meters apart. It was a strange situation, a strange qualifying. Everyone take profit of this little advantage that gave you from two to four tenths of extra speed. And the ones who were alone like Zarco and myself were eighth and tenth.”

Aleix Espargaro, who ended up seventh, had been a member of the group following Johann Zarco. The Aprilia rider felt that one major benefit of following other riders was that it kept him out of the wind, always a factor at Assen. “You know, it was super windy,” Espargaro said.

“It was clear that if you were behind somebody or in a group, it was a lot easier. To change the direction was a lot easier. Then Assen is a track where it’s not difficult to follow. So everybody knows this. Every qualifying is the same. I was pushing in the last lap.”

“Everybody was in front of me. I was behind Valentino. Everybody closed. It was like when the first one closed, the second closed, the third closed. Valentino and myself we closed the same. Then we all realized it was two minutes until the end. Everybody pushed and the times we did on the last lap were unbelievable. The top eight were all in the 1’33.0s. With the conditions we had today, that’s insane.”

Despite the fact that so many riders were following one another, there was only one man who came out on top. To borrow a phrase from English soccer star Gary Lineker, MotoGP qualifying is a sport in which twelve riders try to go as fast as possible on a motorcycle, and in the end, Marc Márquez gets pole.

It may only have been by a narrow margin, but this was his 47th pole in MotoGP, from 98 attempts. That is a strike rate of just under 48%. In other words, Marc Márquez starts from pole roughly every second race he competes in.

Faster than He Looks

The closeness of qualifying belies the advantage Márquez has at Assen.

The Repsol Honda rider’s pace in FP4 was withering: of the fourteen full laps he put in during the only practice session focused solely on race pace, fully half of them were quicker than Andrea Dovizioso’s best lap, who was third quickest in the session.

Andrea Iannone, second in FP4, had only a single lap anywhere near Márquez’ time, and that was set behind the Repsol Honda rider.

The race has all the hallmarks of a Márquez runaway, if he can lead from pole. Behind him, there are a big group of riders all pretty close in times, who could put up quite a fight. “For the race I think we have a good pace,” Andrea Dovizioso said.

“We are one of the fastest in the afternoon, for the race. But Marc is very consistent. I think the two Yamahas are in a good situation for the race and there are some others with good pace.”

Alex Rins, fifth on the grid, felt he could stay with that group chasing Márquez. “I think that the strategy for tomorrow is clear,” the Suzuki Ecstar rider told us.

“We need to do a good start. I think that tomorrow that the top guys like Lorenzo, Viñales, Márquez will break the group from the beginning, because we are a lot of riders in the same tenth. But I will try to go with them, because we have the rhythm, and I feel strong here.”

Breaking the Breakaway

The risk of being in a group was that it can split and fracture if someone makes a mistake, Cal Crutchlow conjectured.

“If someone makes a mistake and runs everyone out, or something like that, it can break it up quite fast, because this is a racetrack where if you lose somebody, it’s difficult to come back, it’s not somewhere where you can hunt someone down,” the LCR Honda rider told us.

“Dovi should be extremely confident, he had a fast pace in FP4 and he’s got a fast bike in 6th gear so he can pass into turn 6. And he’s riding well, but he was also fast at the other races and he didn’t finish them.”

That speed would off down the back straight, Crutchlow felt, where they could just make a gap into the very fast Ruskenhoek corner.

Crutchlow didn’t feel that Márquez’ advantage in practice would necessarily be transferred to the race. “I’m the same [in race pace] as everyone else,” the LCR Honda rider said.

“Marc has got a little bit better pace, two or three tenths, two of them in the last sector, one in the second sector it seems at the moment. But we’ve also seen it before this year when he’s got that but he also hasn’t won, like Qatar in the practice and qualifying, when it seemed it was stronger than anyone else but he never won the race.”

“So it’s potentially a big battle, I think if he goes away he can keep somewhere like Jerez, just one or two tenths but it’s enough. But you never know what could happen, if he makes a small mistake, there are seven riders behind him, it’s one of them. It’s going to be a close race for sure.”

A close qualifying had left Johann Zarco down in eighth, but after his initial frustration, the Monster Tech3 Yamaha rider learned to be phlegmatic about losing out. “When I finished the qualifying in that position I got like angry, because it’s not the best position to start the race,” Zarco said.

“But when you consider the gap, you cannot be disappointed. It means the job has been done and just the others are also pretty fast. For sure it looks like they followed me but I could not wait more and follow them.”

Satellite Reality

What was more frustrating for Zarco was that he felt like he was reaching the limits of what the Tech3 Yamaha can do. “From Friday to Saturday morning we have up and down about the feeling, about the setting,” Zarco said.

“I don’t know why, I wonder if maybe we are touching the best of what we can do, when we try to do a little bit better, we are going worse. So it’s complicated for the riding because you would like to have this constant feeling, to work also on yourself as a rider, but you cannot do it very well, so it’s a kind of experience.”

It is a familiar story. This, Zarco is learning, is what it means to be a satellite rider, and why being in a factory team can be so important.

Try as he and the gifted Tech3 team led by brilliant crew chief Guy Coulon may, they end up oscillating around the peak of his bike’s performance, with changes being sometimes a fraction better, sometimes a fraction worse, but never a big enough step forward to put him back in the game again.

It was frustrating, the Frenchman told us. “I have this frustration that when we are back on the way towards the good things, I say ‘OK, so now we do a few steps to get better.’ And since Mugello, but much more in Barcelona where we were more competitive than Mugello, the step we wanted to do does not give a better feeling.”

“So we are back to a worse feeling and then we must come back, and that brings frustration because I don’t know if it’s me who is going in the wrong direction or just maybe we touched the best we can do. I think that time will tell us those things, and I will stay cool because, as I say, eighth position can give this frustration but when you see the gap you cannot say that we are slow.”

Thinking is Bad for You

Zarco also acknowledged that stress had played a role in recent races, especially the stress of racing at his home round in Le Mans, where he crashed out, then again at Barcelona, which is partially a second French Grand Prix because the Spanish track is so close to the border. Assen was more relaxed, he said.

“Here in Assen, I feel quite good in my head, having less people around you. Here, in the evening, we are alone in the paddock and this gives back a good energy. So now it’s more that the competition is very high and this makes the situation difficult but now I enjoy even when it’s difficult.”

Stress was also playing a part in Dani Pedrosa’s struggles in Assen. With his future still not completely settled, and unable to talk about where he will be next year – either at the Petronas Yamaha team, or retired, even Pedrosa is not 100% yet – it made it hard to concentrate on riding the bike.

Having all these things on his mind was a distraction, Pedrosa acknowledged. “For sure it is a little bit playing, because when you think too much, you think too much. To ride this bike, you need not to think, more or less, so you need to have a free feeling and go,” Pedrosa explained.

“If you are overthinking – it can be this or it can be another aspect in your life – always affects a little bit your riding for sure.”

And that distraction was even more costly at a track like Assen, where every tenth his hard fought, and extremely valuable. “This afternoon I couldn’t really find the pace I need, and I could see unbelievably the lap times how close they were,” Pedrosa said.

“Especially in Q2: Lorenzo was first and then in one pass he was 10th and his lap time was already the fastest of the weekend. What I mean is, of course, if you are not feeling well and you miss one or two tenths, you already can be tenth, so when you don’t have the feeling and you are missing more, you are completely off.”

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.

MotoGP Qualifying Results from the Dutch TT at Assen, The Netherlands:

Source: MotoGP

Another Friday, another save that would have seen any other rider rolling through the gravel. And at Assen, with its collection of terrifyingly fast corners, rolling through the gravel often ends up rolling into the back of an ambulance, and X-rays, cat scans, and metal plates holding your bones together.

But Friday wouldn’t be Friday without Marc Márquez folding the front completely, jabbing his elbow into the tarmac, and hanging on long enough for the front to catch again and stay upright, or what passes for upright if your name is Marc Márquez.

This time it happened at the Ruskenhoek, the very fast left hander after the Veenslang back straight, where the bikes flick right, then long left, and then right again for the short run towards Stekkenwal.

Márquez was traveling at something approaching 200km/h when the front went, but he caught it, stayed on board, and ended up running just off track and clipping the gravel. “I didn’t expect it, and I didn’t want to have a ‘safe’ crash in fourth gear at a very high-speed corner,” Márquez explained.

Holding your line is difficult because of the track changes direction at very high speed, so being precise is of the utmost importance, Márquez said.

“Here at Assen, the speed is so high and to take the correct lines is difficult but we were already in FP2, but in the first run it is always difficult to understand the lines and to be precise. A small mistake is a big mistake here: you cannot adjust with the brakes or the gas and you need to keep the speed during all the lap.”

Trouble with New Tires

The saves the Repsol Honda rider manages in FP2 are not intentional, however, but the result of having problems pushing hard on new tires. “It takes a little bit to understand why I have the moments in the beginning in FP2,” Márquez said.

“If you check a little bit, then this year I didn’t have many pole positions because for some reason this year I didn’t feel good with the new tires; I don’t have the front feeling and for that reason in the beginning in FP2, I have a lot of moments with the front because it was two new tires, and the rear was pushing too much to the front.”

Márquez ended the day as eighth fastest overall, but that time belied his speed. He set his fastest lap of the day at the start of FP2, after fitting a new set of hard tires, and spent the rest of the session on those same tires.

He did not, like everyone else, stick in a new soft rear tire to try to set a time and secure passage to Q2. He did not do that, because he was confident of getting through without it.

“Already with the hard tire the time was not bad, but I feel good in FP2 and for that reason I kept the tires for working on, because we need to understand for the race which tire is the best one.”

In terms of race pace, Márquez was one of four riders who were consistently quick on hard rubber, setting times before the final ten-minute pre-qualifying dash.

Four riders on four different bikes: Márquez spent the whole second session on a single set of tires, Andrea Dovizioso had strong race pace, but barely improved once he stuck in a soft rear, Alex Rins put in three quick laps on a hard rear behind Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi, and Maverick Viñales was quick on hard tires, but also ended the session fastest, with an advantage of over a tenth.

Maverick Reinvented

It was a strong start, and something of a relief for the Movistar Yamaha rider, whose season has been in turmoil since Qatar, up one session, down the next. The secret was perhaps the carbon fiber Ohlins forks which Viñales had decided to use after a positive test at Barcelona after the race.

“I never tried those carbon forks, only tried them last year in Brno and it was totally different,” Viñales said. “So we never had the plan to try it. But it looks like it’s working much better than the old ones.”

Where were the carbon forks better? “Overall, the feeling is a little bit better, in all the areas, just a little bit,” the Movistar Yamaha rider told us. “In Montmelo, we tried a few laps in the test because we had a problem, and already I felt better, so I wanted to try it here and see what was the benefit.”

“For sure changing directions is a little bit easier, but anyway, still there is a lot of work to do, we improved the bike a little bit about my feelings, and I think there is still room to get used to the bike and make the bike a little bit more for my style.”

Being fastest overall, and running a solid pace on hard tires, put Viñales in a positive mood. He has aimed constant criticism at his team so far this year, but he felt that a good start on Friday could be carried on into the rest of the weekend.

“It is really important, because it also gives a lot of confidence to the team, to make the decision to try new setups, to find a way,” Viñales said. “We started good, just adjusted some clicks, get used to the bike and a full tank, and you can ride good.”

“So I think this is the level we have to be each weekend at every track, and we need to keep working like that. I feel good on the bike, I think for sure after Montmelo we did an improvement, give me a little bit more confidence in the bike which is good. We are working hard and we are trying everything. So let’s see if finally we can solve it.”

First Laps Count Double

Viñales had been concentrating on being fast in the early part of the race, pushing hard with a full fuel tank, simulating the start of the race.

“I tried to reproduce the race, start in the first places in the practices and push from the beginning to see what the bike does, and then push even more aggressively than in the race. So I tried, I tried my best to get used to it, and don’t make more mistakes on the beginning of the race,” he said.

The question is whether that will carry through to the race on Sunday, of course. The track can feel very different once the Moto2 race is over, and the assembled Kalexes, KTMs, Suters, and Speed Ups have painted their Dunlop rubber all over the track. Viñales has had more than one false dawn this year.

Andrea Dovizioso’s race pace looked pretty similar to that of Márquez, a fair few laps in the very low 1’34s. I was chided by Davide Tardozzi on Friday afternoon, when I asked if Dovizioso was struggling.

The factory Ducati rider has a two podiums from the four races he has finished, but his real problem has been crashing out of the race, Tardozzi said. Dovizioso is still competitive, as his pace in FP2 showed.

Quietly Confident

Dovizioso himself was positively surprised by his pace, though he still felt he could find some speed. “Yesterday I said I expected to be fast,” the Italian said. “Today it was a bit better than what I expected, but we are with a similar pace to the fastest rider. We are not fastest. So still it’s not enough.”

But race pace on the hard rear tire was good, even though Dovizioso was not yet certain which of the two tires – hard or soft (the medium lacks the grip of the soft and the durability of the hard) – he would be racing. “Today we work on hard rear tires and it was good,” he said.

“The speed was really good. But it’s not clear. We have to work also on the soft. Jorge worked on the soft. Tomorrow morning we will work with the soft to try to understand how it will be because it’s very hot for here at Assen. So we have to see the work of the rear tire because it’s very difficult in this track to be fast and save the tire, because you are always using a lot of angle.”

That tire life is important for Ducati is evident by the fact that the Italian factory brought two versions of a new chassis to Assen.

The first, for the two factory riders, featured a section of the forward and rear frame which used carbon fiber inserts to adjust stiffness. The second, used by Danilo Petrucci, did the same only it had a section of aluminum welded into the same place, adding stiffness to those points in the frame.

Carbon Insets

Jorge Lorenzo had lost time with a small crash, and so hadn’t had time to test it properly, but Dovizioso was enthusiastic about the new frame. “Today we had a chance to make a small comparison, in two exits, and the feeling was good with the new chassis,” the Italian said.

“In the corners I feel similar, the difference was the stability on the straight, because here the ‘straight’ doesn’t really exist and we have a lot of movement with the side wind. In that area it was a bit better.”

Ducati weren’t the only team with new parts at Assen, as Suzuki have brought a new engine, tested by Sylvain Guintoli in Barcelona. Alex Rins was enthusiastic.

“We received this new engine yesterday or Wednesday but the important thing was that we put it in FP1 and was working very good, my feelings were good,” Rins said.

“Nothing changed, just on the straight. In the middle of the corner or the acceleration, it’s more or less working on the same level as the other and that’s all. I think the Japanese guys are doing a really good job, they are developing the bike a lot.”

It is tempting to draw conclusions from a Friday, but Friday is just Friday. The real work for the weekend starts on Friday night, when the teams and factories read the data and crunch the numbers from the first day of practice.

Big steps are made from Friday to Saturday, but not necessarily by everybody. The one blessing for the series is that after a bright and sunny Friday, two more glorious days of sunshine and hot weather are set to follow.

That should make it easier for everyone to figure something out to help them go faster, rather than just the few lucky teams who get it right. With the top thirteen riders all within a second, the scene is set for a thrilling race at Assen.

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.

Another weekend, another racetrack, but exactly the same story. We all gathered once again to hear what Dani Pedrosa had to say about his future, and once again, Pedrosa had nothing to say.

“I know there are a lot of people waiting and wanting to know some information, but unfortunately not yet,” Pedrosa told the pre-event press conference.

“I can’t give any different news from what I already in Barcelona. I expect to, but still things are going slow, so we don’t know at this moment exactly. Sooner or later I will have something to say!”

Once bitten, twice shy, the media were a little more prepared this Thursday. Dorna had put Dani Pedrosa into the press conference, a little safer situation than the masses crowded into the HRC hospitality at Barcelona.

We were acting on a little more information as well: journalists have been talking to a range of sources since Barcelona, and so there is a much better sense of where we stand on the Petronas-Yamaha story, as I explained on Tuesday.

There was some hope Pedrosa might announce something, but a realistic expectation he would not. So the disappointment when the Repsol Honda rider told there was still no news on his future was much more limited at Assen than it had been at Montmeló.

Where do we stand? Sepang International Circuit boss Razlan Razali is at Assen this weekend, but unavailable for reporters, as he is in wall-to-wall meetings finalizing various details.

That suggests that the deal is basically done, and he is now going through the laborious business of tying up loose ends. There is a lot of work to be done to get a MotoGP team off the ground from scratch.

The team will consist of Dani Pedrosa and Franco Morbidelli, though Pedrosa has still not put pen to paper on a deal. In theory, Pedrosa could still choose to retire, but he is not talking like a man on the verge of hanging up his helmet.

Pedrosa still has the fire, the only question is sorting out how much he is willing to settle for at the Petronas Yamaha team. The bike will be a full factory Yamaha, possibly an update or two behind the Movistar Yamaha team, but still highly competitive.

Whither Wilco?

Perhaps the most interesting part of the equation is that Wilco Zeelenberg could be the team manager. Zeelenberg, currently track analyst for Maverick Viñales, and before that for Jorge Lorenzo, has experience running a team, though the last team he ran was Yamaha’s World Supersport effort.

My understanding is that Zeelenberg has been approached about running the team, and spoken to Yamaha senior management about the opportunity, but nothing is decided yet.

This, perhaps, is why there has not been an announcement yet. All the pieces are coming together, but they are not yet in their place. It is clear that there will be a Petronas Yamaha team on the grid next year, but the devil, as always is in the details.

The length of time needed to resolve those details will dictate the pace of announcements being made. Some announcements could be made as early as Friday, but we probably won’t have the full picture – including confirmation of the rider line up – until the German round of MotoGP at the Sachsenring, or perhaps even later.

How do we know that Pedrosa has not yet signed a deal? Because other riders are still hopeful of taking that seat – despite Franco Morbidelli’s protestations that he does not know what his future holds, he is a dead cert to be on one bike in the Petronas Yamaha team, so Pedrosa’s seat is the only question mark.

Waiting in line

“A certain small dude is holding the rest of us up at the moment,” Bradley Smith joked. “Clearly he is the number 1 pick, so once he decides what he wants to do, and if slots into any positions, then the rest of us can follow suit. Just need to be patient a little bit longer until we hear something from him.”

Smith’s management had spoke to the Petronas Yamaha team about the position, but the Englishman was dependent on whether Pedrosa decided to take the ride or hang up his helmet.

“I’d like to think that I’m second on the list, so we just have to wait and see what happens then,” Smith said, adding, “but what I think and reality is also a different story.”

There are precious few empty seats left after the Petronas Yamaha team announces its line up. The factory seats are all filled, as are the Tech3, Pramac, LCR, and Reale Avinita squads.

Taka Nakagami and Tito Rabat are still to be confirmed, but it seems vanishingly unlikely they will be ditched for someone else.

There will be 22 bikes on the grid next year, with the Petronas Yamaha team taking the Angel Nieto Team grid slots and Marc VDS pulling out of the MotoGP class to focus on Moto2.

Help Wanted

That doesn’t mean silly season is over, however. With the riders settled, the merry-go-round for crew chiefs starts up, and with so many riders moving around, there are a lot of jobs going begging.

There are some moves confirmed, such as Aleix Espargaro’s crew chief Marcus Eschenbacher moving to KTM to work with Johann Zarco. Espargaro was not exactly delighted about it, but took it magnanimously.

“It’s going to be a big loss, but life is like this, everybody is free to choose their future, to choose their project,” Espargaro said. “For some reason he thinks that another project is better than this one, and if he will be more happy, I’m happy for him, because he’s a really good guy. But obviously it’s an important loss because he’s a really clever guy.”

Espargaro does not yet know who his crew chief will be, but he has set his sights on a new crew chief with whom he hasn’t worked before. “I have one name super clear in my mind, and I think we are close to close with him, but still very early.”

In the factory Ducati team, the departure of Jorge Lorenzo and arrival of Danilo Petrucci also means a change in the engineering staff. Petrucci is bringing his current crew chief Daniele Romagnoli to Ducati, along with his data technician Christian Batalla.

“It was a thing that I asked for,” Petrucci said. “I will be with Daniele Romagnoli for next year and it will be the fifth year with him – more years than Cal because he was the previous crew chief of Cal. He’s a very good guy.”

“He will join the factory team for the second time, after Cal in 2014. I will bring my data engineer Christian Batalla. He was first in Yamaha then Honda and after Ducati. I will have at least the people closest to me, who I talk most with in the session, for the electronics and mechanical side. Even Ducati is happy about this because they’re Ducati people; it’s not external.”

The arrival of Romagnoli means that Lorenzo’s crew chief Cristian Gabarrini is on the move as well. He will not be moving to Honda with Jorge Lorenzo, but will instead take charge of Pramac rookie Pecco Bagnaia.

This, of course, means that Lorenzo will be looking for a new crew chief, though the obvious step for Honda would be to keep Giacomo Guidotti, currently Dani Pedrosa’s crew chief. But Ramon Aurin, who was Pedrosa’s previous crew chief is also available, as the Marc VDS team pulls out of MotoGP.

Early Silly Season is Stupid Season

The fact that it is still June (just) and almost the entire grid for next year is a massive source of frustration for many riders. Aleix Espargaro was particularly vocal about this at Assen on Thursday.

“I don’t like it at all,” he said. “It’s big ****. I don’t really understand, this is like a fashion.” The problem for Espargaro was that team managers and factories were basing their decisions far more on preseason form than on actual performance during races.

“For me it’s bull****, because if you’re competitive in the preseason test, then you can have a ride already, and we are here for racing. It was good in the past where everybody started to talk and get ready in Brno.”

Having his own deal sorted was nice, but it still didn’t outweigh the downsides, the Spaniard opined. “Obviously I have to say that now I’m relaxed, because my future for I can say the next three years – because we have just started this one – is clear. But I think it’s better to wait and show the potential.”

“But anyway, I think that the level in MotoGP, the riders and the bikes, is very very high. So everybody’s really fast to close the deal. And also it doesn’t give the opportunity to the young riders to show their potential in the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, and also in MotoGP it’s difficult if you have a bad start to the season. I don’t like it. ”

The example of Joan Mir, Moto2 rookie and already signed up as a factory rider to the Ecstar Suzuki team for next year was put to Espargaro. That situation left him almost incredulous.

“We are only half a season, and Mir’s deal is closed from a lot of months ago, if what they say is true,” he said.” Because I think that Suzuki and Davide Brivio are the best team, and one of the best team managers in the paddock, and if he knows what Andrea Iannone did now, he didn’t sign Joan Mir, I’m completely sure.”

“So that means that Joan Mir signed when I was still skiing in Andorra.” Espargaro was competing in cross-country skiing races back in the off season, in January and February.

But how to change this? “It’s impossible,” Espargaro said. “It’s impossible. I mean, for me the next fashion will be to sign like in football, more than two years. I’m pretty sure. Because we start to sign everything super close.”

“So for me the next fashion will be to sign young riders for four seasons. Because I don’t see also, there are a couple of really talented riders in Moto2 and Moto3, but not more than two or three.”

“I don’t see like a lot of super riders coming. So the manufacturers, when many riders will retire, the old ones like Vale, Dani, all of these guys, and the few good ones coming from Moto3, they will have a long contract, because there are not many ones coming, I think.”

Having a rule as there is in professional cycling, which does not allow contracts to be signed before the 1st of August in each year, was a nice idea, but Espargaro was not convinced it would work. It’s not bad. I like the idea,” he said.

“But anyway you can have a private contract always, and nobody knows. I don’t really understand why this fashion arrived here, because it’s just the last four years. Before everything was normal. And now, if you don’t sign before June, everything is closed. It’s unbelievable.”

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.