As announced, here is a collection of pics starring some of the nice ladies who attended the latest World Superbike round in Donington, UK. Not too many pictures from Donington Park this time around, but nonetheless the gallery features some of the most charming English roses we have ever seen. Don’t feel like taking our word for that? Check it out for yourself.

View the full Paddock Girls SBK - Donington 2012 photo gallery

Dorna and Sky Italia have signed a new deal that will see MotoGP broadcasted exclusively by Sky in 2014, giving Mediaset the finger after 10 years of broadcasting and making MotoGP the fifth most watched sport in Italy, while broadcasting not only all three races but also all the three classes free practice and qualifying sessions, and all for free.

Apparently only eight out of the eighteen races on the calendar will be televised free-to-air by Sky, while the others will be pay for view in one of their multiple and costly sports packages, but if Sky is expecting to see a rush of those 4 to 5 million odd viewers that currently watch MotoGP on Mediaset to become new subscribers they can forget, because it isn’t going to happen, at least judging from the very strong reactions from Italians on various blogs and websites that we’ve checked out following the press release.

Sky Italy at the present has between 5 to 5.5 million subscribers, and with the current economic climate in the country, with a growing recession, rising unemployment, spending cuts, massive tax hikes not only from the state but also from the regions and provinces that is causing a rise in social unrest and suicides, no one wants to pull out extra cash just to watch MotoGP, especially not to watch processional races where the outcome is more or less decided after a couple of laps and not even to watch Valentino Rossi, especially a lagging one. To think that Carmelo Ezpeleta not so long ago had stated that he prefered that MotoGP be broadcasted free-to-air to give the championship a larger viewing audience, but that evidently was before the global economic crisis.

What will be MotoGPs loss will be World Superbikes gain, as Mediaset has turned around and just signed a three-year contract (2013-2015) acquiring the broadcasting rights to the popular and highly battled championship, that will with no doubt see a large increase in viewing audiences. WSBK is currently being aired by the smaller LA7 (owned by Telecom Italy) and they currently average between 1.1 to 1.5 million viewers per race weekend, but this is also due to the fact that their digital terrestial TV signal doesn’t reach every home in the country, while Berlusconi’s TV channels reaches everyone.

As usual, in the wake of a major event, we present a huge collection of pics coming from paddock, pits, podium and everywhere else where you can see some action even if the bikes are not moving, and the 5th round of the World Superbike Championship held in Donington Park last weekend makes no exception. As usual, another gallery featuring some of the nicest hostesses attending the race is also in the works, so stay tuned..

How popular is a motorcycle racer in Spain? And how much does personality and racking up wins count when it comes to selling products?

Last year, Personality Media, a marketing consultancy agency, who indicates to advertising companies which celebrity personality, in this case motorcycle racers has more clout over consumers. Last season Dani Pedrosa outscored everyone else, but this year the always fickle public has decided that Moto2 rider Marc Marquez is better giving him high scores in most of the categories, as more and more people are recognizing his name and face.

Only Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi beat him in the recognition category as Pedrosa and Lorenzo are known by 88% of the public while Rossi is at 87% (in the past he’s done a couple of commercials in Spain for Nutella) and Marquez is now at 63%, jumping a big 20% over the year.

Acccording to Personality Media, Marquez elicits more consumer confidence scoring a 7.3 out of 10 compared to Pedrosa’s 6.3, while Rossi is still popular enough to beat all the Spanish riders in the two of the fourteen categories studied and Jorge Lorenzo continues not to be very ’simpàtico’ to the Spanish public.

Source | personalitymedia.es via motogp.com

Our mates from twin site Motoblog.it got ahold of a quite interesting sequence of pics showing Jonathan Rea’s crash in Donington during this morning Free Practice. We are not allowed to publish it because of copyright reasons, but you can check it out anyway by clicking on the image above - which is the first image of the whole sequence - and watch it on Motoblog.it

foto | ST Foto

Japanese motorcycle mag Young Machine reports that Honda is working on a new mid-size sportsbike that will be positioned in the current range between the CBR250R and the CBR600RR. Apparently, the model is being developed with the home market in mind, where this segment of the market is clearly on the rise, and it is supposed to continue the tradition of the classic VFR400 (NC30) and RVF400R (NC35), although the Japanese magazine reveals that the new model will be powered by a flat twin engine (that is likely to bear some resemblance with the CBR250R’s single) as opposed to the V4 that equipped the aforementioned couple of bikes..

According to VisorDown, this new Honda CBR400R should be able to count on about 50 hp, which is twice as much as the CBR250R but less than half the power of the CBR600RR, making it an ideal motorcycle to complete the transition between the two models.

The shockwaves caused by the steady fall of the sportsbike market worldwide surely hit the main guys in Tokyo, and the concurrent renaissance of the sporty 400s market did not go unnoticed either: putting two and two together, it sounds like there are a lot of customers out there that would be interested in this kind of product.

foto | TMCblog

While in Monza, World Superbike stars Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad Motorsport Team) and Michel Fabrizio (BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet SBK Team) attended the launch of the BMW F800R with the brand new Nero Zaffiro Metallizzato paint-job (which is Metalized Sapphir Black in Italian), and we got to admit that the “all black” dress makes the F800R even more aggressive-looking, emphasizing both its lines and bare mechanical bits.

This exclusive color scheme will be made available for the Italian curstomers only, with no extra charge. The F800R is a well-balanced naked bike which is easy and fun to ride in urban traffic as well as on motorways, and comes with a 798 cc flat twin engine with electronic fuel injection delivering 87 hp and an impressive 86 Nm (63 ft-lb) of peak torque at 6,000 rpm, with a smooth delivery and good fuel consumption figures. Its comfortable and light chassis (the bike boasts a dry weight of just 177 kg) makes the bike agile enough to be easily ridden even by the less experienced riders.

Other highlights of this model include standard ABS, TPC Tyre Pressure Control, 320 mm Brembo double disk brake at the front, heated grips, white turn indicators, a flat instrumentation screen (featuring digital clock, total and 2 trip odometers, cruising range indicator and service interval indicator) as well as new sports windshield in body colour.

View the full BMW F800R 2012 Nero Zaffiro Metallizzato photo gallery

Did you enjoy the photo gallery of the umbralla girls seen at the World Superbike round in Monza we published yesterday? As if that was not enough, here’s another bunch of pics of the nice paddock girls hanging around the MotoGP paddock in Estoril, where the Portugal GP took place a couple of days ago. By the way, this gallery is twice the size of the last one, but if that’s still not enough for you, here’s also a nice video starring the some of the ladies featured in our photo gallery as well as some other Portuguese beauty. So here comes the old unanswered question again: what’s better, MotoGP or WSBK? You decide..

View the full Paddock Girls MotoGP Estoril 2012 photo gallery

Italian designer Oberdan Bezzi has become a sort of a regalur feature in our blog, and here is his latest creation: the Bimota SB9 Metallo, a graphic concept that its own maker acknowledges would be quite unusual even for the usually bold Italian manufacturer. According to the concept, the Metallo would be powered by a Suzuki twin engine with displacement enlarged up to 670 cc, while chassis and suspension would use top notch material and components within an overall neat and classic structure.

“The best thing about this concept bike - said Mr.Bezzi himself - would be its bodywork, that should be entirely made of hand wrought aluminum. That would make it a proper and expensive jewel, which would not go for over-the top performance or technology but is rather focused on high quality craftmanship and premium finishing“. Click on the image above to see it in high-resolution. To find out more about Mr.Bezzi’s work, you can check out his official blog (in Italian).

Here is a nice collection of images taken at the latest MotoGP race in Portugal, showing some of the best moments of the weekend ‘away from the track’: once again, you get loads of pics from the grid, from the pits, from the podium, a whole bunch of close-ups and so forth. It surely makes for a nice watch, but we just want you to know that we saved the best for last: a set of pics featuring some of the hottest ladies spotted on and off the track is also waiting in the wings, so keep an eye on this space.

There weren’t just nice Italian hotties hanging around the Monza paddock during the latest World Superbike round: here is a cool photo gallery featuring some shots taken live and on the spot and picturing some of the best moments from the last weekend taken on the podium, in the pits, on the grid and everywhere else while the engines were switched off.

Thanks to our mates from twin-site motoblog.it, here is a little photo gallery dedicated to some of the most fascinating ladies who were spotted here and there in the paddock of the latest World Superbike round, the Italian GP, which took place this last weekend at the historic Monza circuit. Given the poor show that this round offered on the track (apart from some flashes of genius courtesy of Mr. Tom Sykes) these girls had quite some extra work to do in order to keep the crowd cheerful, but we are pretty sure they did the best job they could.