MotoGP: Pedrosa Pounces, Stoner Stunned

When the MotoGP circus rolls into Valencia, most fans snuggle up in front of the TV with a mug of cocoa and a teddy bear, prepared for a nice refreshing snooze. Two riders ruined the ritual this time: Casey Stoner and Ben Spies.

Stoner caused eyes to pop out on stalks across the world. Heading off the grid for the warm-up lap, the Aussie failed to make it to his pole position slot. After two corners he was caught out by the cold rear tyre and flung over the high side, the Ducati tumbling to a halt next to him. Casey has crashed in races before, but this seems to be the first time he has crashed before the race even started. On the plus side, it was pretty funny. On the downside, it has used up Valencia's allocation of interesting things for the next decade.

Dani Pedrosa had qualified 2nd, and was caught by surprise when the starting lights came on with no sign of Stoner. The miniature matador revealed that he had to start with his visor still up as he had been casually waiting for the pole sitter to appear alongside. Of course, that didn't stop the small star from taking the hole shot and disappearing into the distance on his Repsol Honda, unchallenged until the chequered flag.

Jorge Lorenzo was running in 2nd until he had a bizarre incident of his own. He got his FIAT Yamaha into a massive tank-slapper, which was so terrifying that the airbag in his leathers went off. (It puffs up around the neck area and is designed mainly to prevent broken collar bones.) With Lorenzo highly puckered after that scary moment, and hindered by his leathers turning into a sumo suit, his rival and team-mate Valentino Rossi sneaked past into 2nd. Jorge speeded back up a bit when the leathers deflated themselves, but had to settle for 3rd on a track that he has never won at in any category.

Colin Edwards was pootling round in his usual "best of the rest" style on his Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, in 4th place instead of his usual 5th as one of the four "aliens" had crashed on the warm-up lap. The Texas Tornado had to score plenty more points than Andrea Dovizioso if he was to steal 4th place in the championship. However, Dovi was in 7th place on the second Repsol Honda machine, which was enough to nick the championship position from Edwards.

That was until Ben Spies started charging through the field. He was supposedly using the race as a test before his transfer to Tech 3 Yamaha, and was running Yamaha's test team bike with the Sterilgarda colours from his title-winning World Superbike. Sure enough, Benny Elbowz started off gently, but got quicker and quicker as the race went on, starting to overtake people on a track where there is little overtaking, in a race series where there is little overtaking. With growing astonishment, the crowd saw Spies rise to 8th place, and finally pass Dovizioso for 7th.

This overtake guaranteed 5th place in the championship to his fellow Texan, and team-mate next year at "Tex 2" Tech 3 Yamaha, Colin Edwards, who danced for joy and hugged Spies when the race was over.

So it was a relative snoozefest as usual, since the Valencia track is just too small and nadgery for MotoGP bikes, being a more exciting track for the baby categories. However, it will be remembered for two reasons: the coming of Ben Spies, and the going of Casey Stoner.

MotoGP, WSBK, BSB End of May Weekend Roundup

There was a whole lot of racing going on at the weekend. Here are a few of the highlights.

125cc GP: Bradley Smith took his 2nd victory at Mugello. At first, he was quick but crashed a lot, then he was quick but didn't race that hard, now he seems to be both quick and a hard racer. Also, Scott Redding, who is at least a foot taller this year than last, did well to finish the race at all. He had a massive highside but somehow landed back on the bike. A great race.

250cc GP: Mattia Pasini won a truly stunning wet race. He was in 3rd place when the guys in front had a bit of an incident. Marco "Afro" Simoncelli hit Alvaro "Raving psycho" Bautista, and the two rivals went on a terrifying gravel trap excursion at 100mph. Simoncelli came off best (and got an official warning), and had a major last lap battle with Pasini, but it was the less lanky, non-Afro Italian who won the race on his hideous pink Aprilia. Bautista settled for 3rd after a massive moment where he basically did a Scott Redding, having a huge almost-crash but landing back on the bike. Brilliant stuff.

MotoGP: Casey Stoner took the win, and it was very impressive. It was one of those bike-swap races that should be ridiculous but are really utter genius. Marco Melandri was going brilliantly in the wet, but the rebadged Kwak was a pile of garbage in the dry. Jorge Lorenzo finished a brilliant 2nd with Valentino Rossi 3rd, losing at Mugello for the first time in 7 years. Time to retire, you old git! (Kidding, obviously.)

WSBK: Ben Spies took a record 7th pole position in a row and did the double too. The racing wasn't all that great, not helped by the atrocious camerawork that mainly had us looking at a wide shot of about 27 bikes in front of the distant mountains, wondering who was in which position. Michel Fabrizio had a decent day, as did Johnny Rea. Leon Haslam nearly had a decent 2nd race, but spoiled it by crashing out of 4th place half way round the last lap. Oops.

BSB: Leon Camier continues to destroy the opposition. He's just outrageously fast on that Yamaha, and is pretty much doing a Ben Spies in the British Superbike series. His team-mate James Ellison did well to follow his team leader home, while comic book supervillain Josh Brookes took a brilliant 3rd place in race 2, still protesting his innocence in the Guintoli crash.

WSBK: Carnage and Chaos at Monza

The World Superbike races at Monza resulted in a lucky win for Michel "Lanzi" Fabrizio, and a fully deserved win for Ben Spies. However, the day was marred with a chaotic start to the first race.

The trouble with Monza is the first chicane. Some people describe it as dodgy, or a bit too tight, or just plain crap. There has been more than one attempt at remodelling the corner, which used to be simply a kink in a 200mph straight and was therefore a tad dangerous. Some kind of chicane is necessary, but the present one is atrocious. This isn't MotoGP, there are close to 3 dozen bikes on a World Superbike grid, and some of the guys at the back aren't blessed with large amounts of talent or brainpower. The field arrives at the first corner jostling for position, and it just takes one idiot at the back to make a small mistake for carnage to ensue.

That's what happened. There were actually two crashes going on, but the most serious happened when the once-talented Makoto Tamada somehow tangled with Brendan Roberts. The Aussie ended up off the track, and his bike torpedoed the hapless Max Neukirchner, whose only crime was to be leading the race around the chicane. The flying Ducati hit him broadside on, breaking his femur. It's a disaster to have such a quick and popular racer out of action for many weeks, just because of moronic circuit design. A second crash involved bikes bursting into flames. This led to a long delay while the Italian marshalls scrubbed away at the oil and petrol stains on this slow, dodgy corner.

The race was restarted, and everyone managed to get around the first chicane without any major assaults. It turned into the classic Monza slipstreaming battle. The top three were the Sterilgarda Yamaha of Ben Spies and the two Xerox Ducatis of Noriyuki Haga and Michel "It's his passport, stupid" Fabrizio. Amazingly, the underperforming Roman was beating up his championship-leading Japanese team-mate, trying for an unlikely home victory. However, it was the Yamaha Italia bike of Ben Spies that led into the Parabolica for the last time. Then conked out half way round after running out of fuel. Some claimed it was because the Yamaha Italia team forgot to refill the bikes after the aborted start, which seems pretty unlikely. More likely, on a bike with such a lot of trick electronics, is that there was a miscalculation and the fuel load was simply cut too fine. Spies trundled over the line in 15th, immediately parking the Yamaha against the barrier.

This let Fabrizio take his maiden WSBK victory on home soil. The melodramatic Italian was overjoyed, and will probably have signed a 2-year extension to his Ducati contract already, having joined the Lorenzo Lanzi club of riders who got a top factory Ducati ride because of their passports and actually managed to win a race too. Nori Haga was second home, almost touching his team-mate on the run to the line. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) was briefly third, but was pinged for short-cutting a chicane and had 20 seconds added to his race time. This promoted Ryuichi Kiyonari (Ten Kate Honda) to the podium. He wasn't that happy, as he had made an awful start and been forced to fight all the way back up to where he should have been anyway.

Race Two was thankfully less insane, with none of the big names carted off with major injuries. However, there was one of the major names carted off with bumps and bruises. Noriyuki Haga dropped way down on the first lap, finally lobbing the Ducati at the tyre wall in a spectacular display of tumbling. His excuse was that a bird hit him on the right arm, and he didn't have a great deal of control over the bike. Being Japanese, he rode as fast as he could anyway, and fell off. Back to the old Haga? Not so long as birds stop hitting him on the arm. (A crash-happy bike racer with a bird on his arm? There must be a Carlos Checa joke in there somewhere.)

Spies managed to win the race this time, his bike lasting all the way to the chequered flag instead of dying a death 100 yards short. Fabrizio took 2nd, with Kiyo 3rd.

Max Biaggi set the speed record for the day, the whippet-like Roman Emperor wringing 202.4mph out of his Aprilia RSV4. Not bad for a tarted-up road bike, even though cynics call the Aprilia roadbike a race bike with lights and a speedo.

Overall it was a great day's racing that made you feel sorry for the poor saps watching F1 on another channel. Bad news for Max Neukirchner, but he'll bounce back. The DNF for Haga, and the, uh, JBF (Just Barely Finished) for Spies kept the title race interesting, and Fabrizio's lucky win added a 3rd name to this year's roll of honour. World Superbike keeps on rocking, next stop South Africa.

WSBK Assen: Spies and Haga Again

Ben Spies and Noriyuki Haga shared the victories at the Assen round of the World Superbike championship, with the first race being a real classic. Leon Haslam also impressed by taking two podiums on his privateer Honda.

Race One
Ben Spies made full use of his 4th pole position of the year to lead the field into the first corner on his factory Yamaha bike. Behind him were Max Neukirchner, Jakub Smrz, Noriyuki Haga and Leon Haslam. At the front, Spies and Neukirchner were starting to pull away as Smrz held up the rest of the field on his Guandalini Ducati.

Nori Haga quickly managed to squeeze his factory Xerox Ducati bike past the Czech privateer, but Leon Haslam would have to wait a little longer before he could overtake on his Stiggy Honda, by which time his rivals had pulled out a reasonable gap. Tom Sykes on the second factory Yamaha followed Haslam past Smrz when the Czech had a big slide.

Haslam had to work hard to catch up to Haga, who was in turn catching the leading pair. Setting fastest laps, the Englishman caught up to make it a group of four fighting for first place. Immediately he had a big scare when Max Neukirchner fell in the final chicane, the German's Suzuki righting itself and shooting back across the track, coming terrifyingly close to clouting Haslam.

Spies now had Haga to deal with. The Japanese rider's Ducati was blisteringly quick around the back of the track, and he constantly harried his American rival. Behind them, young Haslam had once again clawed his way back to the leading group. With Tom Sykes riding a lonely race in 4th position, the next battle was for 5th, with Michel Fabrizio's Xerox Ducati, Max Biaggi's Aprilia and Jonathan Rea's Hannspree Ten Kate Honda fighting it out.

With ten laps left, Spies made a small mistake, running just inches wide, but that was enough for Haga, riding crazily close behind as always. As the Japanese star snatched the lead, Haslam pulled alongside on the next straight and outbraked Spies to take 2nd place.

Haslam's rear tyre started to squirm around with around 4 laps to go, and Spies found his second wind. The three leaders were locked together with barely a bike length between each of them. On the next lap, Spies managed to pull alongside Haslam, but the Englishman refused to yield. The pair went around three corners side by side, almost leaning on each other, before Spies took the upper hand. It was a breathtaking display of control from both riders. The slightest mistake would have taken them both out in a shower of gravel and acrimony.

It looked like Haga must have the win sewn up, but Spies put in an incredible last lap. The Texan somehow shot past Haga to take the lead with a stunning pass in a fast right hander. With just one left hand corner before the final complex, Haga could do nothing to fight back. Ben Spies won the race to continue his astounding rookie season in WSBK, ahead of Haga and Haslam. It was a truly classic Assen battle.

Race Two
Ben Spies made another excellent start, but it was Noriyuki Haga who led the field around the first lap. Leon Haslam was first to the corner entry, but outbraked everybody including himself, dropping back to fourth. Spies only waited a few corners before passing Haga, and was pulling out a few bike lengths when he suddenly crashed on the second lap. He was unhurt, but his Yamaha tumbled right through a gravel trap and over the barrier.

Haga now had the lead back, with Max Neukirchner's Suzuki in second place and Leon Haslam in third. Michel Fabrizio was next up. The Italian took advantage of the fight between Haslam and Neukirchner to close up and pass Haslam for third. Shortly afterwards, Fabrizio rudely shoved Neukirchner wide, the hapless German running off the track, furious with the Ducati rider.

At the front, Nori Haga was now checking out, while Fabrizio, Haga and Smrz battled over the remaining podium spots. Fabrizio was having one of his randomly-selected good races, and was holding back the clearly faster bike of Haslam.

Nicking an idea from Ben Spies, Haslam shot past Fabrizio in the fast right hander towards the end of the lap. The first four positions then settled down, with the excitement coming from the battle for fifth, between Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes. The pair swapped positions back and forth, with Rea eventually coming out on top.

Haga led easily across the line to take the victory and keep up his impressive title challenge. Haslam finished an excellent second, by far the best Honda rider. Third place was decided on the last lap, with Fabrizio missing a gear to let Jakub Smrz steal third place. Fabrizio celebrated fourth with a hilarious display of melodramatics as he cursed his misfortune.

It was not a classic race, especially compared to the fantastic first race of the day, but Haga used his new-found consistency to make himself the clear favourite to win the championship.

WSBK Qatar: Spies Double - Oh, Heaven!

Ben Spies continued his breathtaking dominance of the World Superbike series by taking pole position and winning the double at Qatar, but Noriyuki Haga kept his championship lead with a pair of second place finishes.

Race One

Max Biaggi made his customary lightning start on the V4 Aprilia, with Noriyuki Haga's Xerox Ducati slotting into second place. Polesitter Ben Spies could only manage 4th place into turn one on his Yamaha, with Jakub Smrz impressively slotting his privateer Ducati into 3rd in front of the Texan. Shinya Nakano on the second Aprilia was keeping Spies in sight, and there was soon a battle for 3rd between Nakano, Smrz and Spies, with the Texan struggling to pass his rivals. 

Biaggi's Aprilia was very quick in a straight line, certainly quicker than Haga's factory Ducati, as the Japanese contender was just a tad too slow to slipstream past the late-braking Roman Emperor. Spies woke up and dispatched Nakano and Smrz, who suffered a big highside shortly afterwards. The American had now woken up and was travelling faster and faster, slipstreaming past Haga then passing Biaggi for the lead on the same lap, at two-thirds of race distance.

Behind the leaders, Nakano's Aprilia was in 4th place, which he would hold to the end of the race. Ten Kate Honda's Carlos Checa came through the pack into 5th, but couldn't quite hunt down his old MotoGP rival. It was an encouraging race for Shane Byrne on the underfunded Sterilgarda Ducati, taking a very respectable 6th after a pair of DNF's in Australia, while Tom Sykes on the second Yamaha Italia machine continued his learning process with 7th.

Back at the front, Spies got his head down and reeled off some fast laps that the following pair just couldn't keep up with, stretching out a 1.8 second lead by the end of the race. Biaggi and Haga, who have never really seen eye to eye, battled closely for 2nd place. Using his Ducati's superior handling, Haga made an excellent entry onto the straight, and managed to slipstream past Biaggi's Aprilia to nick 2nd and relegate the Italian to 3rd place.

Overall it was a fairly unexciting race, largely due to the Losail circuit's dull, F1-esque design. Ben Spies was shockingly quick on a track that he has never raced on before, while the usual suspects of Haga and Biaggi rounded out the podium. The Aprilia was especially impressive for a brand new bike, taking 3rd and 4th places and holding its own on the endless start-finish straight. One of the biggest disappointments was Max Neukirchner, who struggled for pace all weekend on his Suzuki and ended up with a DNF, despite being fastest down the straights at 200mph.

Read the rest of my review of the Qatar round of the World Superbike championship at Motorbikesport.com

WSBK: Haga and Spies Ease to Victories at PI

It was all change at Phillip Island, as old boy Noriyuki Haga won the first race of the season, while new boy Ben Spies took pole position and a victory.

There has been incessant chatter about Ben Spies. He won the AMA Superbike championship at a canter, but that was just a two horse race anyway. Our ex-colonial cousins insisted the quiet young Texan was the real deal, but the only way to settle the argument was to let him loose in a proper championship like World Superbike. Riding the new "big bang" Yamaha, Spies took pole position with a blistering lap. The doubters now knew that Spies was seriously speedy, but would he be a great racer, or just a much taller version of Dani Pedrosa, quick only on an empty track?

In Race One, we only got to see Spies race for two corners before he was punted off. Haslam and Biaggi sat up, and Spies on the outside ran out of road in the exact place where Pedrosa hopped off at the last MotoGP round on the Island. Spies, however, stayed on the bike. Keeping an eye on his gap from the leader showed that he remained 23 seconds back from first place right to the chequered flag. In other words, he was lapping at race leading pace. So he was quick, and didn't throw in the towel despite being way out of the points.

Up at the front, it was the kind of classic World Superbike race that Phillip Island always seems to produce. There was a small amount of carnage, with BMW rider Ruben Xaus punting Ten Kate Honda's Ryuichi Kiyonari out of the race, and Shakey Byrne falling off his Sterilgarda Ducati all on his own. The race for the lead was frantic, with a big freight train of bikes led by Haga (who had started 13th) on the Xerox Ducati  and Max Neukirchner (who started 14th!) on the Alstare Suzuki. Punching above their weight, the likes of Leon Haslam (Honda) and Regis Laconi (Ducati) were mixing it with Michel Fabrizio's factory Ducati and Johnny Rea's Ten Kate Honda.

It all came down to a last lap thriller between Haga and Neukirchner, the Ducati being faster on the twisty bits and the Suzuki being a missile down the straight. The German looked like he might have the race won, but he lost time saving a big highside on Lukey Heights, letting Haga sneak past into MG. The Japanese star won the race by 3 hundredths of a second from the German, with Suzuki hero Yukio Kagayama taking the final podium spot.

Race Two started better for Spies, as he outrageously went round the outside of Max Biaggi's Aprilia to snatch the lead after a couple of corners. Right, so that's the questions about his racecraft answered then. It was interesting to watch Spies race at the front. Despite being a gangly guy with knees and elbows sticking out all over the place, he hangs all the way off the bike like tiny Toni Elias.

The battle for the lead involved Spies and Haga, who quickly sliced through the field from his lowly grid spot. The pair swapped the lead a couple of times, rarely separated by more than a couple of bike lengths, until finally the American put the hammer down and pulled out a bit of a gap in the last 2 or 3 laps. Haga couldn't respond, and despite the Ducati's red glare, Spies crossed the line to win his 2nd ever World Superbike race, in his first ever race meeting at Phillip Island, on the radical new Yamaha.

Biaggi, who seemed to be heading for a podium spot, slowed a bit towards the end, and nearly tangled with Haslam and Laconi on the last lap. The Roman Emperor got a taste of his own medicine as he had to run off the track to avoid his rivals. Laconi was deeply impressive on his privateer Ducati, but he lost out on 3rd place to Leon Haslam. It was an incredible result for the Pocket Rocket, giving the Stiggy team a podium in only its second race in the Superbike class and destroying their fellow Honda runners, the all-conquering Ten Kate team.

Overall, what did we learn? Haga has taken to the Xerox Ducati team like a frog to red wine, Aprilia are quick, BMW still have work to do, Regis Laconi is back, and the Haslam-Stiggy combination works a treat. But the big news is this:

There's a new Texan winning in WSBK. And this one's quiet.

WSBK Silliness: Shakey and Spies, But No Sylvain

The latest update on the World Superbike Silly Season is that the series will have Shakey Byrne and Ben Spies, but will sadly be sans Sylvain Guintoli.

This year's British Superbike champion Shane "Shakey" Byrne has officially signed for Sterilgarda Go Eleven Ducati in WSBK next year. That should satisfy his desire to remain on a Ducati 1098R but move to the World championship, and I'll be expecting him to go very very quickly. Of course, he doesn't know all the tracks, but he knows a few of them from his MotoGP days.

Ben Spies has signed to partner Tom "Grinner" Sykes at the Yamaha Italia squad in WSBK. It's a bit strange for Yamaha to have two young rookies who don't know most of the tracks. Sykes knows Brands Hatch and Donington well, while Spies will know Miller Motorsports Park in the USA, and he's been round Donington too. Of course, Spies would have known a bit about Assen but he controversially refused to replace the injured Loris Capirossi in the MotoGP round there, an incident that may have helped seal his snub from Suzuki. Anyway, both these kids are extremely quick. The funniest thing about it may well be the first time that Sykesy beats Spies. We'll see how the Texan's ego copes with that.

Finally, according to a scoop in BikeSportNews, MotoGP reject Sylvain Guintoli will not move to WSBK on a Yamaha, but will actually move to British Superbikes to replace Tom Sykes on a Crescent Suzuki (currently Rizla Suzuki, but it's not known who will sponsor them next year). Sylvain is a really nice bloke, but there's no two ways around the fact that he's been outperformed on the Alice Ducati since Toni Elias got his groove back. Since the Frenchman lives in England, the BSB rounds will be much less of a commute than he's used to. He'll be looking to impress on a Superbike and score a switch to World Supers.

WSBK: Silly Search for Bayliss Replacement

World Superbikes usually has a good silly season, but the search for the new Troy Bayliss just keeps getting sillier and sillier. The Aussie star leads the championship on his Xerox Ducati 1098F08, but has finally decided that he will retire at the end of the year.

The trouble with replacing Bayliss is that he's one of the best riders in the history of Superbike. Choosing between him and Ducati's other WSBK legend Carl Fogarty is largely a matter of whether you prefer laid-back Australians loved by all, or arrogant Englishmen who get up everyone's hooter. As riders, Bayliss and Foggy are World Superbike gods, with records that others can only dream of.

So it's not just a case of replacing a quick rider, it's a case of replacing a superhero. You can't replace a superhero with some guy who will probably win the odd race, you need to find somebody who will win championships. The team's number 2 rider is expected to be a young Italian who is quick but erratic. Michel Fabrizio currently fills that position and is almost certain to stay next year.

Let's look at the riders who have been linked with the number 1 Ducati ride for next year:

Shane "Shakey" Byrne
Currently winning the British Superbike series at a canter on a Ducati 1098, Shakey is experienced, with some MotoGP races under his belt on the atrocious Aprilia and Roberts-KTM machines. In the last couple of years in BSB on 4-cylinder Japanese bikes, he spent half his time crawling off the track with concussion (though the time that the front brake calliper fell off his Rizla Suzuki and he had to jump off the bike at 170mph wasn't his fault!) He just seems to click with Ducatis, having won the BSB title and a couple of races as a WSBK wildcard back in the day. He is head and shoulders above anyone else in BSB this year and looks like he was born to ride the 1098. On the downside, he doesn't know the WSBK tracks. In with a decent chance, and would be my choice to replace Bayliss.

Max Biaggi
This season, The Roman Emperor is riding a Ducati in WSBK for the 2nd-string Sterilgarda team, and he's not exactly setting the heather alight either. Ludicrously parted with Suzuki over wage issues despite almost winning the title last year. On the plus side, he's extremely quick when he feels like it and is a 4-time 250cc World Champion. On the downside, he keeps falling out with teams. And Ducati only ever win the WSBK title with British and Australian riders (Foggy, Bayliss, Hodgson, Toseland, Bayliss again) so an Italian won't be much use. Still, in with a good chance because it's an Italian team and he's Max Biaggi.

Chris Vermeulen
Having a hit and miss season with Suzuki in MotoGP, but seems to have staked his claim for another year at Suzuki (though there are rumours that he will have to take a pay cut). World Superbike, even the prestigious factory Ducati ride, would be a step down for Vermeulen, so he will almost certainly try to stay in MotoGP. As a former Ten Kate rider in WSBK and WSS, he knows most of the tracks. Would be an excellent choice if his MotoGP dreams all fall through, but it looks pretty unlikely.

Michel Fabrizio
There is a possibility that Fabrizio might be promoted to team leader alongside up and coming Italian Niccolo Canepa. So then there would be two erratic young Italians failing to win the WSBK title for Xerox Ducati. It is also said that Ducati want to get Canepa on the career-killing Alice Ducati MotoGP bike to groom him for the future. Fabrizio as number one Ducati in WSBK is unlikely, but with team politics being what they are, who knows?

Ben Spies
Getting pretty silly now. The Texan is the latest big name rider to be linked with Ducati, however his pay demands are truly ludicrous. He earns more than half the MotoGP paddock, and possibly more than anyone in WSBK. This is because he has won the truly worthless AMA Superbike title, where the wages are obscene and the racing is utterly non-existent. He doesn't want to take a pay cut just to race in some foreign race series, even though AMA Superbike is currently in the process of disappearing up its own crevice and re-emerging as 600cc SuperStock with bells on, which may kill off all the factory teams. Spies would be a fascinating choice for the ex-Bayliss ride, but there isn't a hope in hell of it happening unless he re-thinks his love of filthy lucre. Maybe he will show up in WSBK at some point, when AMA SBK is in tatters and all of the garage doors in MotoGP are firmly shut...