Jorge Lorenzo says he “felt freedom” after the Honda rider completed his final MotoGP race in the season finale at Valencia. Lorenzo, who announced he would be retiring at the end of the season on Thursday following a bruising first season as a Honda rider, brought his bike home in 13th place in an attritional
MotoGP
Ducati MotoGP riders Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller have both insisted the manufacturer has not discussed with them the prospect of Miller replacing Petrucci in the works team in 2020. Petrucci secured a 2020 contract extension to ride alongside Andrea Dovizioso in the factory team on the heels of a solid start to the season
Yamaha MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi lamented a “wrong” Valencia qualifying strategy that left him mired in traffic and consigned him to a lowly 12th on the grid. While the other three Yamahas all made it to the top five in the second qualifying segment, Rossi was 0.976 seconds off the pace in the pole shootout
MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez says he won’t change his approach should younger brother Alex become his Honda team-mate in 2020, as has been strongly suggested. Autosport revealed on the Saturday of the Valencia Grand Prix that Honda was closing in on a deal that would bring ’19 Moto2 champion Alex Marquez to MotoGP next
Johann Zarco has dismissed the notion of joining Avintia Ducati in MotoGP next year despite recent links and would rather return to Moto2 because Avintia is “not a top team”. Ousted KTM rider Zarco was one of the names tipped to replace the retiring Jorge Lorenzo at the factory Honda team, having had an impressive
Fabio Quartararo held onto top spot in FP2 to end Friday’s MotoGP practice for the Valencia Grand Prix fastest of all, while Yamaha stablemate Valentino Rossi crashed again. Petronas SRT rider Quartararo snatched first place away from works Yamaha man Maverick Vinales in the closing stages to lead the field on Friday by 0.148 seconds.
MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez suggested that the Valencia Grand Prix host circuit Ricardo Tormo will be “critical” should temperatures plummet any more this weekend. The mid-November timing led to track temperatures not exceeding 21 degrees Celsius during Friday’s two free practice sessions. Numerous riders made complaints after Friday’s running about the track conditions, with
Marc Marquez’s Moto2 champion brother Alex is among the contenders for a 2020 Honda MotoGP ride after Jorge Lorenzo’s retirement. The younger Marquez had already agreed a deal to continue with Marc VDS to defend his Moto2 title, while being linked to a 2021 MotoGP chance with Pramac Ducati. Lorenzo’s decision to retire at the
Retiring three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo says he is “very sorry” to have “disappointed” Honda and team boss Alberto Puig with his poor form in 2019. Faced with a likely exit from Ducati, Lorenzo contacted Honda during the 2018 season and agreed a shock switch to become Marc Marquez’s team-mate from this year onwards. But
Johann Zarco says a 2020 factory Honda MotoGP call-up in light of Jorge Lorenzo’s retirement would be “an exceptional dream”, but insists he would be happy with an LCR ride as well. Zarco, who has impressed as LCR’s stand-in for Takaaki Nakagami in the last two races following an ignominious end to his short tenure
Three-time MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo has called time on his glittering career at the end of his worst season in grand prix racing. Lorenzo joined Honda for 2019, but a season plagued by injury and difficulties in adapting to the RC213V meant he has not even scored a top 10 finish so far. After
MotoGP promoter Dorna Sports has announced a preliminary agreement to bring a Hungarian Grand Prix to the calendar from 2022. The announcement comes nine years after the country’s previous attempt to hold a MotoGP race collapsed. The series was meant to make its first visit to Hungary since 1992 in 2010 at the proposed new
The recent Malaysian MotoGP served up a significant statistic for Yamaha, as Maverick Vinales’ dominant win marked its first brace of victories in one season since 2017. After crashing out of the fight for the win in Australia, Vinales led from start to finish at Sepang in a dominant display, which harked back to the
Reigning MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez has outlined what changes he wants made to the 2020 Honda in a bid to find more performance. Marquez eased to his sixth premier class world title this season with four races to spare, and won 11 grands prix while finishing inside the top two in 17 of the
MotoGP boss Carmelo Ezpeleta has urged Jorge Lorenzo to make a decision on his future, having described the three-time premier class champion’s recent struggles with Honda as “sad”. Lorenzo is approaching the conclusion of what has been a nightmare first season as a Honda rider, sitting 19th in the championship with just 25 points to
Jonas Folger has announced he has split with Yamaha after less than a year as the manufacturer’s European MotoGP test rider. Folger joined Yamaha’s European test team at the start of 2019 season and also added five Moto2 outings with the Petronas-backed SIC Moto2 team to his schedule. He claims he had verbally agreed to
Aprilia’s MotoGP engine is set for a fundamental redesign in 2020 as part of the RS-GP’s overhaul for next season, racing department CEO Massimo Rivola has revealed. Aprilia has finished at the bottom of the MotoGP manufacturers’ standings in the last two yaars and holds the same spot in this year’s table, 13 points behind
Iker Lecuona will stand in for Miguel Oliveira at the Tech3 KTM team in the final round of the MotoGP season in Valencia. It means Lecuona, who will race alongside Oliveira at the team in 2020, will make his MotoGP debut at the Ricardo Tormo circuit. “To have this opportunity in my home Grand Prix
Maverick Vinales says his improved form in the second half of the MotoGP season is down to avoiding new parts and focusing on extracting the maximum from his Yamaha bike. Since the summer break, Vinales has scored three podiums and victory in Malaysia, and came close to adding a third win to Yamaha’s tally for
Alex Marquez sealed the 2019 Moto2 world championship by finishing second to Brad Binder and beating his other main rival Tom Luthi in the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Marc VDS rider held his nerve in a tense battle with Binder and Luthi to keep his points gap above the required 24 to add to his
Phillip Island could move to the start of the 2021 MotoGP calendar, as promoter Dorna Sports pushes to stage the event in better weather conditions on safety grounds. A run of cold, windy spring conditions during recent Australian Grands Prix has resulted in the October date falling further and further out of favour in the
Maverick Vinales led every lap of MotoGP’s Malaysian Grand Prix to take a dominant win ahead of Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso. The victory was as straightforward as they come for Vinales, the Yamaha rider taking the lead on the opening lap and never looking back. His final margin was three seconds over Marquez, as
Jack Miller was critical of riders attempting forceful overtakes on the inside of Sepang’s final corner in the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix, after receiving a heavy hit from Alex Rins. Rins clattered into the side of Miller at the Turn 15 hairpin while trying to take fifth away from the Pramac Ducati, with the Suzuki
LCR Honda MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow says his Malaysian Grand Prix was compromised by power loss that led to a “horrendous” start and left him mired in the pack. Crutchlow had qualified fifth at Sepang, but was muscled down the order on the opening lap and was running only 12th when he crashed out with
Marc Marquez watched his start from MotoGP’s 2015 Italian Grand Prix to inspire his launch from 11th to second on the opening lap of this year’s Malaysian race. The Honda rider crashed heavily while trying to follow eventual poleman Fabio Quartararo in Saturday’s qualifying session at Sepang and ended up 11th on the grid, which
Malaysian Grand Prix poleman Fabio Quartararo says a “total disaster” of a first lap put him on the back foot for the rest of the Sepang MotoGP race. The Petronas SRT rider was expected to challenge for his first race win at Sepang, having set lap records in practice and taken a convincing pole position.
Suzuki rider Joan Mir criticised MotoGP race direction for penalising him for his Malaysian Grand Prix clash with Johann Zarco – saying Zarco apologised to him for it. Zarco and Mir were running right behind Jack Miller in ninth and 10th beginning the final quarter of the race when they collided at the long Turn
Marc Marquez says his massive crash in Malaysian Grand Prix MotoGP qualifying was the result of him trying to “copy” eventual poleman Fabio Quartararo’s Turn 2 approach. Quartararo set new lap records in both of Friday’s practice sessions and was already targeted by Marquez in the early stages of Q2 to be used as a
Andrea Dovizioso says Marc Marquez’s shadowing of MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix poleman Fabio Quartararo prior to his qualifying crash was “very aggressive”, but praised the Honda rider’s relentlessness. Marquez followed Petronas SRT rider Quartararo on their first run in Q2 and tried to do the same in the latter stages of the session. The Honda
Indonesian rider Afridza Munandar has died from injuries sustained in a crash in the Asia Talent Cup race on the support bill at MotoGP’s Malaysian Grand Prix. The opening race of the 2019 ATC finale at Sepang got under way after MotoGP qualifying earlier on Saturday. On the opening lap, at Turn 10, Munandar was