Yearly Archives: 2012

Audi has started its campaign in the inaugural World Endurance Championship by taking the first two positions in the 12 hour race at Sebring in Florida, USA.  Tom Kristensen, Dino Capello and Alan McNish drove the Audi R18 TDI bearing the number two to victory while Loic Duval, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas drove the Audi R18 TDI bearing number three to second place.

In the same race, Karun Chandok of India driving the HPD ARX-03a for Team JRM finished the race in 17th position.  Team JRM like Karun Chandok is participating in the World Endurance Championship for the first time this season.

If team NGM Forward Racing is high profile for one reason then Team Aspar is also the same for another.  Team Aspar is the one team that is headed by ‘Aspar’ Jorge Martinez and has presence in all three categories of GP racing from Moto3 to MotoGP (CRT).  Aprilia which is making a rear door entry into MotoGP again is using team Aspar as its main team.  Aspar who ran a Ducati till last year switched to the less expensive ART – CRT because that has given them possibilities of racing with two riders and also getting full factory support.  Aspar has also presented its motorcycles as ‘Team Power Electronics’ Aspar ART.

We have been talking of CRT teams and the most high profile of all the CRT teams has been NGM Forward Racing which is using a combination of Suter Chassis and BMW engine. The reason why this team is considered high profile is because of the fact that it has been able to sign double World Superbike champion Colin Edwards as its rider and his abilities to develop a motorcycle are actually legendary.  Another reason is the Eskil Suter whose company developed the Suter chassis is a former GP rider himself and has developed chassis for the Kawasaki factory team when it entered MotoGP and also for the ill fated Ilmor MotoGP motorcycle that could not be sustained due to lack of funding.

At a private test at Motorland Aragon Tom Sykes astride the Kawasaki ZX10R broke the pole and the fastest lap records on racing rubber.  Sykes has been unfancied through out his career but this year he has been showing good speed with the Kawasaki in the World Superbikes testing, qualifying and racing.  He even made it to the podium in one of the two races at Philip Island and almost made it onto the podium in the other one as well.  Now Sykes says that he has been ignored mainly due to the fact that he never had good machinery, a claim that is dubious since he was the teammate of Ben Spies when the latter dominated World Superbikes and won a title for Yamaha.  It remains to be seen if Sykes can keep up this kind of pace which the ZX10R seems capable of through out the year.

It appears as if Dorna Chief Carmelo Ezpeleta’s strong arm tactics with the Japanese factories are producing results.  Not only were the Japanese made to eat humble pie with regard to the CRT or Claiming Rules Team bikes they were even forced to sit back while Aprilia is for all practical purposes fielding a prototype motorcycle under the ART or Aprilia Racing Technologies moniker with Team Aspar, Team PBM etc.  Ducati too is not for the domination of the Japanese manufacturers when it comes to scripting rules and with Suzuki out of the picture and only Honda and Yamaha left from the Japanese side, it seems that even BMW Motorrad is now getting interested in MotoGP.  It has made favourable noises and has even said that this year’s Suter-BMW ridden by Colin Edwards could be a case study to see if things will be favourable for BMW to enter MotoGP, something that it almost did a few years back but abandoned when the cubic capacity of engines was reduced to 800cc.  Now that the capacity is back to 1000cc BMW says it has an open mind.

Ducati’s radical new contender for the MotoGP Championship has been revealed to the world.  It now has a green band to go with the traditional red and white that had been always used and this means that the Ducati GP12 is carrying the theme of the Italian Tricolore.  Architect of the bike, Filippo Preziosi has said that the motorcycle is using full 1000cc capacity and that it continues to have a 90 degree V angle.  However, looking at the single radiator that has replaced the usual two it is being said that the cylinder bank has been rotated backwards and therefore one sees that the fuel tank is higher than on previous models.  It is also believed that the petrol tank is actually situated under the rider’s seat and all this has been done to get a better mass centralization and more weight on the front, something which Rossi and Hayden have been asking for.  Under the dummy tank is the air cleaner element.  It is already known that Ducati for the first time ever have gone in for an aluminium delta box frame supposedly being built by British chassis specialists FTR who are also building the frame for the Avintia BQR Kawasaki engined motorcycles that are participating in the CRT category.

Both Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden are cautiously optimistic about the potential of the bike, especially since the two Sepang tests have not seen the bike taking off in great style and closing the gap to the Hondas and Yamahas.