Before heading to Japan to take part in the 35th edition of the iconic Suzuka 8 Hours Noriyuki Haga will be racing in the second round of FIM Endurance World Championship at Losail, Qatar in the 8 Hours of Doha on June 9th.

NitroNori who currently races in the British Superbike Championship replacing injured Ian Hutchinson in Swan Yamaha and is 10th in the series, will be get to know his Monster Yamaha YART Team (ex Yamaha Austria Racing Team) prepared YZF-R1 ahead of the Suzuka race.

The three-time World Superbike runner-up (2000, 2007, 2009) and Suzuka 8 Hours winner (1996) will be fielded next to Gwen Giabbani, Steve Martin and Igor Jerman, while at Suzuki his team mates will be his own BSB team mate Tommy Hill and two-time champion and current leader of the All Japan Superbike series, Katsuyuki Nakasuga.

Luckily it looks like the beginning of 2012 racing season is the year of motorcycle saves, because after Ivan Silva’s massive save at Estoril and Jakub Kornfeil’s at Jerez we can head across the ocean to a catch a big eyeful of AMA Pro Supersport rider Genki Hagata’s highside save at Sears Point from his onboard rear camera.

Hagata has now officially been added to our own personal list videos of ‘how in the hell did he save that’ riders.

Source | asphaltandrubber.com

Jorge Lorenzo may have lost the battle to Casey Stoner today at Estoril, but the Yamaha rider is more than satisfied with his second place podium considering it was a ‘nightmare’ weekend until his crew managed to solve the set-up problems he was having and a burnt clutch in the first laps didn’t help. Despite everything he ‘almost’ caught the Repsol Honda rider who proved to be be too strong as his energy waned and settled for some precious points and is just one point behind Stoner in the standings.

“I’m happy with this second position because I was expecting to fight for third or fourth and not the victory,” said Lorenzo. “The bike improved a lot from the practices so it was possible. I had two problems, at the start I used a lot of clutch and burnt it so for two or three laps it was burning and I lost a lot of distance from Casey. Also at the end Casey was very strong. After this everything was working well and I made a fastest lap, which is not very common for me. We are just one point behind Casey, hopefully we can improve something on the bike tomorrow and be in front again.”

If team mate Lorenzo is happy, Ben Spies can only be satisfied that MotoGP no longer be racing at Estoril, a track that he doesn’t like as he as never finished a race at this particular Portughuese circuit. After finishing 11th in the last two races, the American says an 8th place after some major mistakes in the race is a ‘confidence builder.’

Spies definitely needs to get his mojo back as soon as possible, because Yamaha isn’t going wait very much longer before starting negotiations with other riders for the 2013 season and everyone wants to re-see Elbowz back in the thick of things.

“Very mixed emotions today, this is actually the first time in three years that I’ve finished a race here. As I told the team, I made four or five big mistakes during the race, they cost me time and places. It was a rough race but I’m continuing to build my confidence, I don’t enjoy Estoril so I’m happy to have finished,” said Ben Spies.

MotoGPs free practice at Estoril was a waiting session for the majority of the riders who sat out the first half hour hoping for better track conditions which still had several damp patches and puddles in the final turn.

At the start of the session only MotoGP rider Ben Spies was out on track followed by CRT riders Michele Pirro, Yonny Hernandez, Danilo Petrucci and Ivan Silva. The Yamaha rider posted the best lap times in the 45 minutes and bettered himself in the last minute with a 1’40″813 lap, finishing ahead of Ducati riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi.

Nicky Hayden was a little less than three tenths from Spies who put in 17 laps, while Valentino Rossi using Hayden’s settings was six tenths off pace, pushing back Casey Stoner to fourth who only did five laps on his Honda and was more than a second adrift.

Stoner was followed by Alvaro Bautista and the Yamaha Tech3 duo, with Cal Crutchlow faster than his team mate Andrea Dovizioso. Dani Pedrosa was 8th followed by a surprising Yonny Hernandez in 9th with Karel Abraham closing out the top ten.

Points leader Jorge Lorenzo - celebrating his 25th birthday today - and Hector Barbera (Pramac) decided to sit out the session and didn’t post any recorded laps.

MotoGP Estoril FP1 results:

01- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’40.813
02- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 0.273
03- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 0.689
04- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.130
05- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.417
06- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.478
07- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.530
08- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 2.265
09- Yonny Hernandez – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 2.443
10- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.452
11- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 2.464
12- Michele Pirro – San Carlo Honda Gresini – FTR Honda – + 2.698
13- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 2.714
14- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – Suter BMW – + 4.096
15- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda TR003 – + 4.335
16- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 4.823
17- Mattia Pasini – Speed Master Team – ART GP12 – + 5.191
18- Ivan Silva – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 5.458
19- James Ellison – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP12 – + 11.616

Jorge Lorenzo launched the first and very tenuous lifeline to solve Valentino Rossi’s predicament of where he’ll be ending up in 2013, by saying he wasn’t against a return to Yamaha of his former team mate, “I wouldn’t mind at all. I work for Yamaha, and if there was another fast rider on the machine (what the hell is Ben Spies then, ground meat?) , we could improve our overall chances of success.”

Lorenzo knows exactly what the media wants to hear these days with a very important silly season just starting to gather steam, however Yamaha’s Lin Jarvis in an interview with Mela Chércoles on AS.es seems to be slightly softening his former position that Rossi is not an option.

Jarvis had Rossi in Yamaha for seven years and talking about Rossi’s disastrous results so far said, “It’s hard for me to say what is happening, but I’ve got the feeling that he has lost confidence in the bike. Valentino is an extraordinary rider and knows how to improve and develop a motorcycle and is a perfectionist up to the smallest detail, but if you are unhappy with something you can not perform at your best.”

During the Qatar weekend there was a wild rumor that Rossi would be leaving Ducati to rejoin Yamaha, in his own satellite team with Coca Cola footing the bill (who seems to be in interested in buying Monster Energy).

To continue like this is not good for him or for Ducati, or for the sport. I haven’t thought about him for next season. We have two riders on factory equipment and two satellites bike. Tech3 has a two bikes for next year, so you can see it is a difficult situation,” said Jarvis. “A return would be an interesting possibility? Especially for the press, I’m not closing the door, but it isn’t a very realistic situation. What matters is that Valentino fulfills his contract with Ducati. The season is very long and there is still time to make an informed decision. ”

Yamaha has struggled to find a title sponsor these last two years and Rossi despite being way off his game is still a sponsor and crowd magnet, so if you were Jarvis, would you want the attention grabbing Italian with his tail between his legs, a deflated ego and with a lot less demands back in your line-up?

During yesterday’s MotoGP race at Jerez, where everyone was still jockeying for positions in an action packed first couple of laps, Jorge Lorenzo pushed Andrea Dovizioso wide at the Dry Sac and then threw out his arm in what appeared to be an apology, however it turned out it wasn’t an apology, but a warning sign towards the Yamaha Tech3 rider aggressiveness.

Lorenzo in an video interview with Sportmediaset said, “It was a sign to warn him to wait until maybe halfway through the race or at the end before making a pass, especially on the first laps. In theory I’m racing for the championship title and he’s on the same manufacturerer’s bike … so he has to wait a little and not try to pass me at 100%, always at the limit, risking that we could both fall and get zero points. I think you should wait to do it at halfway in the race or at the end rather than risks at the beginning, in MotoGP you have to learn how to take calculated risks … that’s why I signalled Andrea not now. Experience has taught me this.”

Asked about Cal Crutchlow, the current points leader laughingly said, “He kind of scares me a little, I hope that if he’s intelligent and if he’s faster than me then he passes me, but at the beginning of the race in MotoGP you have to be more patient.”

What did Dovizioso have to say about Lorenzo’s early warning? “Let’s say we were both wrong, the blame is 50-50, He tried to pass me, but I had a little more margin and let the brakes go. He had room to turn. I think he did it on purpose to touch me and give me a warning, but it wasn’t anything special. “

Jorge Lorenzo despite his never-give-up attitude could do nothing to stop Casey Stoner at Jerez due to what he considers a wrong tire choice - even if the majority of the riders made the same choice - and despite his silky smooth and perfect riding style he wore out his front tire faster than he expected.

“Today I knew it would be a very important decision on the grid to choose the right front tyre. Finally we chose the soft one, unfortunately we were wrong and had a lot of problems during the race, I wasn’t as confident as in practice. Without good feelings to finish second is not so bad, we are still leading the Championship and have good motivation for Estoril,” said Lorenzo.

Ben Spies may have snapped at the journos who after just one race, suggested that Andrea Dovizioso may be taking his seat in the Yamaha factory team next season, but Spies will have to worry more about Cal Crutchlow taking his place after another disappointing and this time unexplainable performance in today’s race at Jerez. The Texas Terror faded to a lowly 11th and again was the last MotoGP prototype rider on the grid (not counting Karel Abraham who crashed and then rejoined) and not showing any of the form he had in pre-season.

“I don’t really know what happened, I got off to a pretty good start from the line but after that I didn’t have a good feeling with the bike, it was a pretty pathetic race really for me. I’ve apologized to the team and we’ve had a long meeting about what I was feeling with the bike. I just wasn’t comfortable, I rode as hard as I could but the speed just wasn’t there. We need to find something because we can see the Yamahas are working well but my feeling with the bike is not great. It was a bad day at the office today,” said Spies.

Here is a nice video starring the new Yamaha Super Ténéré Worldcrosser 1200 during the press test that took place in Spain last month. This professionally made footage shows us the most extreme version of the XT1200Z Super Ténéré taking on the difficult conditions of the evocative Spanish countryside and proving it is totally at ease on the gravel, on the sand, through the water and so forth. The video also lingers on some of the most interesting details of the model and surely will make all the fans of this bike happy.

The model is powered by a 1,199 cc in-line two with a a compression ratio of 11.0:1 that is credited with an output of 110 hp and 114 Nm of torque at 6,000 rpm. What really sets the Worldcrosser apart from the ‘regular’ Super Ténéré is a bunch of special parts: carbon side panels, lightweight carbon frame and fork protectors, drive shaft shield and rear brake protector in black anodized aluminum and an aluminum skid plate. Then we have a pretty cool new photo gallery picturing this awesome bike courtesy of our buddies from Motoblog.it: check it out.

View the full Yamaha Super Ténéré Worldcrosser photo gallery

Today’s MotoGP qualifying session at Jerez went down to fierce battle for the pole position between two rival Spaniards, Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa who were completely above the rest of the field for the entire session.

Despite the difficult conditions, with scattered wet patches along the circuit, Lorenzo was able to take his first pole position of the season (his 20th in MotoGP) on his last flying lap with a best time of 1′39.532 and 0.2sec under the race lap record that left Pedrosa in second and 0.135s adrift.

When we say that the two Spaniards were a cut above the rest of the field, you just have to look at an excellent Nicky Hayden, took third place on the grid, but he was a little more than one second adrift. If Hayden was the best Ducati rider. the worst was Valentino Rossi who qualified in a lowly 13th. It was a disastrous session for the Italian, who was a massive 3.4 seconds from the top of the timesheets, but even worse, he was 2.4 seconds from his team mate and was behind Ducati satellite riders Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera, but CRT also rider Randy de Puniet finished ahead of all three Ducati’s in 10th.

Opening the second row will be Tech 3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow. The Briton the fastest rider until the halfway mark, but a crash at the Expo 92 turn (that also caught out Colin Edwards and Michele Pirro) forced him out on second bike, but his lap time was good enough for a fourth spot. Reigning Champion Casey Stoner could only manage a fifth position on what he considers his bogey track. Ben Spies came out of his free practice slump with his 6th position, but he was more than 1.5 seconds from his team mate.

Andrea Dovizioso was 7th followed by Alvaro Bautista and a very aggressive Stefan Bradl who was ninth.

MotoGP Jerez Qualifying results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’39.532
02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.135
03- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.031
04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.038
05- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.045
06- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.558
07- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.648
08- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.915
09- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 2.018
10- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 2.168
11- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.192
12- Hector Barbera – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.339
13- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 3.429
14- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 3.603
15- Michele Pirro – San Carlo Honda Gresini – FTR Honda – + 3.831
16- Mattia Pasini – Speed Master Team – ART GP12 – + 4.776
17- Yonny Hernandez – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 4.935
18- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda TR003 – + 5.113
19- Ivan Silva – Avintia Blusens – FTR Kawasaki – + 5.185
20- James Ellison – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP12 – + 6.192
21- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – Suter BMW – + 6.668

As we mentioned in our earlier post previewing the upcoming Jerez GP, Yamaha rider Ben Spies spent the last week in Italy riding his bicycle around the Emilia Romagna region and taking part in the 13th annual Gran Fondo race in the Republic of San Marino.

Spies is so passionate about cycling that he already has a USAC category 2 license and in 2011 founded the Elbowz Racing an elite bicycle racing team that also debuted the same year to take part in numerous events.

The Texas Terror and part of his Elbowz team (the other half was in Dallas for the Matrix Challenge) rode the popular 154 km mixed weather race that included a 8,530 ft climb with 2000 starters in his category. Spies finished second in his category and 14th overall after completing the race in 4 hours, 26 minutes, 58 seconds.

We need to see Spies and Troy Bayliss - another passionate cyclist who as also taken part in various bike races in Italy - pitted against each other as we never saw them race against each other in World Superbikes.

Source | benspies.com

Following the recent announcement that Swan Yamaha’s reigning BSB champion Tommy Hill and Noriyuki Haga will be taking part in the 35th Edition of the Suzuka 8 Hours with the Monster Energy Yamaha YART team in July, there are now rumors floating around in Italy and at Assen that the Samurai of Slide, Nori Haga may be getting a wild card ride for the fifth round World Superbike championship at Donington Park in May.

Haga who is replacing injured Ian Hutchinson in the team, hasn’t had much luck so far in the British Superbike championship. The Japanese rider finished 13th in Race 1 and Race 2 was cancelled in the opening round at Brands Hatch and the second round at Thruxton Haga DNFd in the first race and finished 10th in Race 2.

A race on a well known track and in front of his still numerous World Superbike fans and seeing some friendly paddock faces could help galvanize NitroNori.

More info if the rumors come true.

In a presentation that took place at the Yamaha Factory Racing head-quartes in Gerno di Lesmo, Italy, Ben Spies and cyclist Enrico Battaglin introduced a special version of the Yamaha TMAX 530 that will be part of the crew at the 95th ‘Giro d’Italia’, the famous Italian long distance road bicycle race. The Yamaha TMAX 530 ‘2012 Giro d’Italia’ Edition will come with a special black/white/pink livery specifically designed by Yamaha for this race, but apart from that it is identical to the standard model.

The partnership between Yamaha and Gazzetta dello Sport (the Italian newspaper that organizes the event) is entering its 4th year, but for the TMAX 530 this is going to be the maiden year at the race. The Yamaha TMAX 530 ‘2012 Giro d’Italia’ edition is the official motorcycle of the event, meaning that 30 units will follow the race in all of its 21 stages. The Giro d’Italia will start with a time trial in the Danish town of Herning, on May the 5th, and will end in Milan on the 27th, with another time trial.

However, the TMAX 530 will come on duty a little earlier, on the 26th of April: on that day, a special ‘Giro d’Italia’ organized by the local ASD TMAX Club - an official club patronized by Yamaha Motor Italia that gathers many TMAX enthusiasts from the whole country - will leave from Gerno di Lesmo and cover almost the same route of the race, marking the first official ‘public appearance’ for the model.