MotoGP Enters The Twilight Zone

Silly season started sooner than expected in 2008, and seemed to be over. Incredibly, it has found a new lease of life. Rumours ranging all the way from daft to idiotic have been flooding the internet, largely thanks to the Guys in Green.

It looks like Kawasaki will either be pulling out of MotoGP, or not pulling out of MotoGP. Maybe leaving their dog-slow bikes in the charge of pint-sized small-capacity Spanish legend Aspar. Or not. Maybe keeping Hopper but not Melandri, or the other way round. Or both. Or neither.

These options lead to various permutations, whereby Hopkins and Melandri would go to different teams, bringing sponsorship (Hopper) or fading reputation (Melandri) to displace younger riders. Or displace older riders, with one of the more ludicrous rumours being that Colin Edwards would get punted from Tech 3 in favour of Hopper. (Yeah, because Herve would rather have sponsorship than close links to Yamaha. Sure.) At this time, everybody is denying everything.

Added to this is the fact that Pramac Ducati have lost their sponsorship from Alice. (Alice? Who the f...) So maybe Pramac will be down to 1 bike, and Onde 2000's dodgy building and evil dictating backers will increase their investment to 2 bikes. And that would mean riders moving to different teams. Of course, everyone is denying everything about everything.

This is Silly Season at its silliest. No more than 1 in 10 of the rumours flying around is at all convincing. Most of them come from the Spanish press, whose incredible ability to uncover major scoops is rivalled only by their incredible ability to make them up. My plan is to sit back in a bemused fashion and watch it all unfold.