Marco Melandri - What a Hero!

The MotoGP visit to Le Mans was wet as usual, and it produced a really interesting race. Cocky Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo won magnificently, staying out on wet tyres until the last possible moment before switching to slicks, and destroying the field in the process. However, the most amazing performance was from Marco Melandri, finishing 2nd on the Hayate Kawasaki.

Last year, Marco seemed to be finished. He just couldn't ride the Ducati. Whereas Casey Stoner chucks the Bologna Bullet into corners and wrestles it out of them, Marco was as terrified as a trainee tiger tamer in his first public performance. The hapless Italian would trundle round in last place, looking like an idiot.

But this year, Marco is back. The nutter who came around the last corner at Phillip Island, with one hand on the bars, smoking up the rear tyre on his way to victory, is back in the paddock. And he's riding the wheels off that awful black-painted Green Machine. Maybe it's fortunate that John Hopkins was fired by Kawasaki, he was terrible on that bike last year and would probably look like a complete monkey next to Melandri this year.

Marco took a thoroughly deserved second position at Le Mans. It was not caused by dozens of people crashing in front of him, it was sheer speed and talent in the impossibly slippy conditions. Even Valentino Rossi panicked, stopped too early for dry tyres, and fell off after about 3 corners on slicks. But he jumped back on the bike, did about 30 more pit stops, and finished the race. Only Kallio managed to rack up a DNF, and only Lorenzo managed to finish in front of Melandri.

It's great to have you back, Marco.

Kawasaki Hokey Cokey

Kawasaki have finally pulled their Green Team out. Of MotoGP, that is.

Thanks to their riders John Hopkins and Ant West, last year Kawasaki's MotoGP team were known as "Team Dude". Considering their results, they should've been known as "Team Dude, We Suck!" Faced with a credit crunch, the Kawasaki hierarchy drank a wee Sake and decided with heavy hearts that Kawasaki Heavy Industries couldn't keep up such a heavy investment in MotoGP.

This reads a lot like Honda's pullout from Boremula One. A large company, participating in a sport they don't really care about, spending lots of money for no return, with slow machinery piloted by a has-been and a never-quite-was. When the board of directors are looking for a large waste of money that can be canned without anyone really giving a monkey's, the race team are at the top of the list.

Do the non Kawasaki riding fans of MotoGP care? Only if they're Hopper or Melandri fans. People will support struggling teams if they're battling the odds, like Team KR did. When it's a massive Japanese company getting terrible results there's no excuse. Kawasaki's MotoGP team never really impressed anyone, and with a full factory squad simply making up the numbers, they were losing a lot of face. The only option left is to ritually disembowel the team.

So, will Aspar be running the awful green bikes next year? Frankly, who cares? There will be no money for proper development, so the bikes won't get any faster. The Honda satellite teams will be running bikes the same spec as Pedrosa had late-ish last year. In other words, much better than the Kwaks. Aspar wants his foot in the door of MotoGP, and is prepared to run terrible bikes to make up the numbers for a season or two if need be (he has top-spec machinery in the junior classes to keep his pecker up.)

It's hard to shed any tears for Kawasaki. Their MotoGP project was always half-baked, showing a flash of brilliance in 2007 then blowing it. If King Kenny Roberts can be unceremoniously booted out of the sport, largely thanks to idiotic rule changes pricing them out of the market, then who the hell are Team Green in comparison?

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.

MotoGP: Green Monster Arrives At Last!

Kawasaki have finally announced that they will be sponsored by Monster Energy for the 2008 and 2009 MotoGP seasons.

I say finally as it was rumoured for quite some time. I helped spread the rumours myself with my "Hopper turns into Green Monster" post back in July.

To recap, Monster Energy is a competitor to Red Bull in the American "energy drink" (i.e. highly caffeinated sugary water) market. It is owned by Hansen Natural Corp, an American soft drinks goliath which has been giving the Monster Energy drink the hard sell to the kind of people who begin and end every sentence with the word "Dude!" This ties in nicely with Kawasaki's new nickname of "Team Dude!", which it gained by signing the paddock's top two dudes, John Hopkins and Ant West.

Monster Energy already had links with Kawasaki's AMA road racing program, and were Hopper's personal sponsor last year. They support various extreme sports that are popular in the Dude! sector, and the brand is growing rapidly thanks to the fact that the drink comes in bigger cans than Red Bull. Plus, monsters are obviously cooler than bulls, as no self-respecting monster would ever get stabbed by some Spanish bloke with a cape.

MotoGP: Hopper Turns Into Green Monster

As has been reported just about everywhere, John Hopkins will ditch Rizla Suzuki at the end of the year and ride for Kawasaki in 2008. MCN reports that Hopper's wage demands were around the $5 million mark, which Suzuki were not prepared to pay, preferring to draft in another rider.
Rumour has it that the Kawasaki deal is being financed by Hopkins' personal sponsor, Monster Energy. This is an energy drink similar to Red Bull, with tons of caffeine, vitamins and other hocus-pocus energy ingredients, and it is being aggressively marketed in the US to extreme sports fans in much the same way as its rival. Monster currently sponsors American sportsmen throughout motorsport, from Motocross to Champcar, along with heavy metal festival Ozzfest and even skateboarder Jason Acuna, better known as Wee Man from Jackass. The Kawasaki linkup has been rumoured for a while, since Monster Energy sponsors the Kawasaki team in AMA Superbike and SuperSport.
Ironically, the Suzuki team is sponsored by Rizla in both MotoGP and British Superbike. The difference is that Rizla is a small manufacturer of cigarette papers, whereas Monster Energy is a subdivision of Hansen Natural Corporation, with is the up and coming beverage company in the United States, with a turnover of $600 million last year, and growing fast.
Hansen Natural Corp can afford to throw large amounts of money at their Monster Energy brand in an effort to catch up with Red Bull, also helped by the fact that Red Bull sells in stupid teeny-tiny cans at high cost, whereas Monster is cheaper and sells in various sizes up to a huge, resealable can of more than 700ml. (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't sleep for a year if I drank that much caffeine in one go!)
This makes it likely that Monster Energy will be the title sponsor for Kawasaki in 2008. The green team currently don't have a title sponsor, meaning that rider wages must effectively be paid from the marketing budget of the parent company. It is probable that Monster will pay Hopper's entire monstrous wage bill, along with some of the team's racing budget.
This makes it more likely that Kawasaki may run a 3rd bike next year as has been rumoured. With Hopper bringing his Monster Energy sponsorship, Kwaka would effectively be getting the Californian's services for free. This means that if they capture Loris Capirossi's signature as seems likely, they should still have enough funds to pay for a 3rd bike for the much cheaper Randy de Puniet. (Cheaper wages, that is. The accident repair costs must be scary!)
Of course, this is just speculation. The only thing that has been confirmed is that John Hopkins will ride for Kawasaki next year. The MotoGP Kawasaki is said to be a winning machine looking for a winning rider, and the prospect of having three of them on track next year is pretty tasty.