VOL. 50 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 27, 2013
Briefly...
R
out of second place. At the same
track, two days before, he'd broken another record – the fastestever MotoGP crash, at 212 mph.
His closest rival is Kenny Roberts, who won four times in his
first season. Roberts did go on to
win the title that year, 1978. The
omens are clear.
Brno was the middle of an intensive series, three races in a
P63
row. The week before at Indy the
race had the same result as Brno:
Marquez, Pedrosa, Lorenzo. The
difference here was that it was a
much closer finish. Had the race
been one lap longer, opined runner up and Repsol Honda teammate Pedrosa, he might have
been ahead instead of three
tenths behind. "I left it one lap too
late to pass [Jorge] Lorenzo, or I
Customer MotoGP bikes, and who
will ride them, were the major topic
at Brno, with clarification on Yamaha's position coming from boss Lin
Jarvis on what they will supply to its
first and so far only customer NGM
Forward Mobile racing. Contrary to
reports from Indianapolis, where
the team chief said they would be
receiving almost a complete motorcycle, Yamaha is actually offering a
sort of halfway house – still much
more than the original engine-only
plan, but not the whole package.
This, Jarvis explained, was to help
the team in its first year, but the aim
was to revert to the engine-only offer in 2015, with the team achieving
self-sufficiency. "For the first year
we've decided to help the team
start up – we will lease frame and
swing-arm as well as the engine,"
he told the press. But airbox, exhaust, radiator, wheels, suspension
and brakes would be the team's
responsibility. With 24 liters of fuel
against the factory bikes' 20, Jarvis
opined that there would be some
tracks or circumstances where the
lease bike was potentially quicker
than the factory machine. Although
there has been no official confirmation, it is believed that current top
CRT rider Aleix Espargaro has
signed for the team, which currently fields Colin Edwards and Claudio
Corti.
The Honda customer list so far includes the Gresini Go&Fun team,
where Scott Redding is expected
to sign up shortly; and AB Cardion's Karel Abraham, with a possibility also that Nicky Hayden will
ride a production RC213V for the
LCR team.
continued on next page
