Carlos Checa, a veteran of MotoGP who switched to World Superbikes and won the championship this year on a Ducati, has been drafted by the Ducati MotoGP team to help with the testing the new aluminium delta box framed Ducati GP Zero.  Ducati is calling it the GP zero because this is the base on which it hopes to build by the start of the 2012 MotoGP season.  Regular riders Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden were unavailable since Rossi is doing a one of rally in a Ford car as a tribute to his late friend Marco Simoncelli while Hayden is recovering from a surgery to his scaphoid.

Joining the Ducati on the track were the various CRT machines such as the BQR FTR Kawasaki, and NGM Forward Suter BMW with riders Yonny Hernandez and Colin Edwards respectively riding them.  This is the first time that Colin Edwards has appeared on the race track after his injury in the accident that took the life of Marco Simoncelli at Sepang, Malaysia.

Interestingly the factory BMW Superbike that Marco Melandri will race in 2012 was also present at the track with Melandri riding it for the first time.  Leon Haslam was also present and set faster times on the BMW than Melandri did.  While Haslam was third in the combined times (MotoGP, Moto2 and World Superbikes times) behind Checa on the Ducati GP Zero and Scott Redding on the Kalex Moto2 motorcycle, Melandri was in 16th position ahead of only Yonny Hernandez on the FTR Kawasaki CRT and Xavier Simeon on the Tech3 Moto2 bikes.  There were thirteen Moto2 bikes ahead of Melandri.  But he could be doing some simulations that did not need him to set super fast times.

Sebastien Ogier who recently split up with the Citroen Rally team has signed up with Volkswagen who will be returning to the World Rally Championship in 2013.  Volkswagen will be rallying with the Polo car which is now undergoing development.  Ogier will assist in the development of the car for the World Rally Championship in the year 2012 and race it in the 2013 season.  Ogier’s place at Citroen has been taken by Mikko Hirvonen.

Polish Formula1 driver Robert Kubica will not be driving in the opening races of 2012 for the Renault Team (set to become Lotus Renault in 2012) since he will not have recovered sufficiently from the injuries that he received when his Skoda car crashed while he was participating in a rally.  Rallying has been a passion with Kubica and therefore decided to participate in a one of rally competition before the start of the 2011 F1 season.  Kubica was lucky to survive the crash and at one time it was believed that he would lose his right hand which fortunately was re-attached to his body and subsequently regained its functioning.  Kubica may join the team sometime during the 2012 season if he returns to full fitness.  Team boss Eric Boullier has said that the team is committed to Kubica and that he can return to racing with the team when he is fully fit.

Martin Tomczyk who won the DTM series this year by beating Bruno Spengler will be leaving Audi for whom he has driven till this year to join BMW in 2012 when the manufacturer is returning to DTM racing after a long absence.  He will be teammate of Bruno Spengler who has also joined BMW, leaving Mercedes Benz.  Tomczyk’s main rival for the title this year was Spengler.  Interesting times ahead in DTM racing.

The McLaren Formula1 team has denied that it will be linking up with Honda for an engine supply deal from the year 2014 when new engine regulations mandating the use of 1.6 litre turbo charged V6 engines kick in.  McLaren has said that it is very happy with its current engine deal with McLaren that runs till 2016 and sees no reason to change before the contract runs out.

Veteran driver Pedro De La Rosa will join the HRT racing team for the 2012 season of Formula1 racing.  De La Rosa has been a tester with McLaren for a long time now and raced for the team when Juan Pablo Montoya left the team to go racing in NASCAR mid season in the year 2006.  He made his F1 debut in 1999 with the now defunct Arrows team and also had a stint at the Jaguar team which is now Red Bull Racing.  De La Rosa has been with McLaren as a test driver since 2003 and in 2010 he was drafted by the Sauber team which replaced him towards the end of the season last year by Nick Heidfeld.  De Le Rosa then performed some tyre testing duties for Pirelli before re-joining McLaren as their test driver.  Now again he has been offered a chance to race by the revamped HRT team which is Spanish and he too is from the same nation.  His ability for car development has also been instrumental in the 40 year old getting the seat at HRT.  If Rubens Barrichello were to be on the grid next year, then the number of drivers who will be over 40 years of age will be three, the third being Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes car.