Michael Scott | June 29, 2018
2018 Assen MotoGP Friday News
Pedrosa and Yamaha. Is it on or not?
Mystery surrounds? It seems everyone is talking about Dani Pedrosa’s future except the rider himself.
With Yamaha close to finalizing details with new sponsor Petronas to run the second team, and talking freely about supplying at least one factory-spec motorcycle, Pedrosa seems to be keeping his powder dry until the last details of the contract are signed.
He spoke at the official pre-event press conference, basically repeating his non-information from the Catalan race two weeks earlier.
“I know a lot of people are wanting information, but I can’t give any different news. I expect to sooner or later, but things are going slowly.”
Although there is no official confirmation, Pedrosa is expected to be joined in the new squad by Rossi protégé Franco Morbidelli, a move that Rossi laughingly approved of, “as long as he is not going to beat me”.
Sepang circuit chief Razlan Razali was at Assen, but operating behind closed doors as plans for the new Petronas team continued to crystallize.
Prime candidate to manage the squad is former GP winner and long-time Yamaha Racing staffer Wilco Zeelenberg. The Dutchman worked as rider coach with Lorenzo and more recently with Maverick Vinales.
The need to take over an existing team means an arrangement still under negotiation to take over the slot from Jorge Martinez’s “Aspar” team, currently running Alvaro Bautista and Karel Abraham on Ducatis under the “Angel Nieto” name. Martinez has been struggling for a title sponsor.
Marc VDS out of MotoGP
With the Marc VDS team also pulling out of MotoGP to concentrate on Moto2 in the wake of their internal financial controversy, this means MotoGP numbers next year will drop from 24 to 22.
The entry shrinkage leaves space for the much-vaunted Suzuki satellite team, but it will not happen next year, at least.
This was revealed in an interview with Dorna by Suzuki project leader Ken Kawauchi, ending rumours of a deal with the Marc VDS team.
The smallest of the Japanese factory squads had been trying to put together a satellite team for next season, “but unfortunately it was too short time,” he said.
But the desire to have four Suzukis on the grid remained, “maybe in 2020 or 2021”.
Formula 1 to Assen?
Dutch rumours that Assen is planning to host F1 in the future brought forth a negative response from most of the riders at the pre-race conference—mainly because of the way the cars create rippling bumps in the braking areas.
But there was also some sentiment involved, for 10-time Assen winner Valentino Rossi.
“I hope they don’t come,” he said. “F1 has a lot of tracks just for cars. Here at Assen in history, it has been just for bikes. So the bumps would be bad, but also for the historic side.”
Jorge Lorenzo was worried about what modifications would be required to make the fast corners safe for the cars. There would need to be chicanes, and barriers, where “here there is green outside the track”.
MotoGP was fresh from Catalunya, where not only a full resurface but also the elimination of the F1 chicane had been a welcome restoration of the rhythm of the track—but where Marquez pointed out that as a result of testing, “there are already some bumps coming back”.
No more Kazakh
MotoGP’s first Kazakh rider Makar Yurchenko’s rookie Moto3 season has come to an abrupt end, in spite of the 19-year-old scoring points in three of the last four races. The problem was money, after promised sponsorship backing for the French CIP team failed to materialise. His place alongside lead rider John McPhee has been taken by 16-year-old Italian Stefano Nepa.
Carbon this, carbon that
The latest technical fashion in MotoGP is in carbon-fibre chassis cladding, designed to modify stiffness ratios.
Already seen on factory Hondas in the past, Suzuki was continuing testing the system, and Ducati also had a pair of new chassis—one for each rider—similarly equipped.
At Suzuki, team chief Davide Brivio said that Alex Rins had two of these, having liked from his first trials before the Barcelona race; but Iannone had just one, because he had taken until the post-race tests to appreciate any advantage.
Both riders also had upgraded engines, with slightly improved power, Brivio added.
Ducatis carbon firber experiments were in search of better cornering performance on worn tyres, said the team’s Davide Tardozzi.
At Yamaha, Vinales’s bike was fitted with a sensor to measure clutch lever movement – an attempt to pin down the reason for his bad start at Catalunya.