Silly Season rages on, as interesting as ever.
The latest news concerns the fast but crash-hungry Australian, Casey Stoner. He has officially signed for Ducati next year, saying that nobody has ever won a championship on a satellite team so he wants to race for a factory. (He should tell that to Marco Melandri!)
2007 will be an interesting year, with different people disagreeing on whether it's a good time or a bad time to move, since the new 800cc bikes will be so different. With Stoner moving away from Honda and Melandri staying, we will see who is right.
The highly-rated Spaniard, Carlos Checa has been hugely impressive this year on the creaking old Tech 3 Yamaha with its Dunlop tyres. (Admittedly, Tech 3 and Dunlop have to take some of the credit.) Checa has now signed to replace Stoner at LCR Honda, and will race on Michelin tyres. He is surely in with a chance of winning a race or two next year.
Little Casey's move to Ducati means that poor old Sete Gibernau is out on his ear. (At least he's not out on his collarbone!) Not only that, but the injuries sustained in the crash with Stoner mean that Sete will not race for Ducati at Valencia either. WSBK champion Troy Bayliss is rumoured to be standing in for that race. Where will Sete go next year? Possibly Kawasaki or one of the satellite teams such as D'Antin or Tech 3. Some people are claiming he will retire due to his injuries. We'll have to see.
Konica are staying with the JiR Honda team, probably switching back to Bridgestone tyres. Shinya Nakano is very likely to ride for them in 2007.
I'll bring more silly news as it emerges.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
MotoGP Silly Season Update: Stoner to Ducati
Posted by Jimmy at 12:44 pm
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4 comments:
Jimmy I love your insights: the way you present incoming events is even more attractive than what provided by the professional press. If you have time, why don’t you come up with a daily update, a sort of summary of what happened overnight that “ we” should be aware of?
Thank you!
I'm not sure if there are enough overnight developments for a daily post. I don't have any special information sources. I do try to post as often as I can, but sometimes I leave it a day or two to see how a situation develops. :-)
I see, and as matter of the fact I am contemplating in having more people to write for Pure Motorbike Passion to make it more interesting? Would you considere it?
I'm not sure. I wouldn't give up the Armchair Bike Fan blog, anyway.
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