Rumors of BMW and Aprilia entering MotoGP in 2012 have been floating around for some time now, with Aprilia more or less denying that they want to enter the premier racing series, but BMW has a slightly different attitude, and BMW’s General Director of BMW Motorrad bigwig, Hendrik Von Kuenheim arrival during the Qatar GP sent tongues wagging again on the topic.

Apparently Dorna and BMW had set up a secret (not so secret if everyone is mentioning it) meeting to discuss something other than the German manufacturer supplying their cars as safety vehicles for the races (they’ve got a contract with Dorna until 2016) which could mean that BMW is finally negotiating their long awaited arrival in MotoGP.

According to this week’s Motosprint magazine edition, Von Kuenheim seems all for MotoGP and isn’t actually quite that happy with the image return that they get off Superbikes and wants something more, which MotoGP could give them. But this manager wasn’t the head of the division, when Herbert Diess’s idea of entering the prototype racing series in 2007 was shot down, especially after Berthold Hauser showed the company that the initial racing budget to enter MotoGP was around 40 million euros compared to just the 12 million needed to compete in Superbikes, and since racing doesn’t come cheap, Superbikes was chosen.

Continue reading: Not so secret meeting between Dorna and BMW

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With Christmas just around the corner, you can send your biking friends a special card thought up by BMW, the Christmas Concert E‑Card.

The video has motorcyclists using their BMW motorcycles and helmets and gear as musical instruments playing the traditional American carol “We wish you a Merry Christmas” but you can personalize the card by uploading your own pic to the face area of the rider who opens the visor at the end of the video and the sign with Christmas greetings message can also be personalized.

Interested in this different idea? Just hit the BMW Motorrad Christmas Concert E-Card link here and follow the simple instructions.

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We already knew from Davide Tardozzi’s interview that he was splitting from BMW, but now the German team has officially confirmed the divorce, but instead of a separate press release they put it at the end of the usual rider quotes from the first day of practice at Magny-Cours, making it look like an afterthought.

BMW Motorrad Motorsport and Davide Tardozzi have agreed to part company by mutual consent with immediate effect. BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director, Berthold Hauser, says: “With his wealth of experience Davide has been a great help to us this season in his role as Team Manager. However, he and the team had different ideas regarding the structure of the team. We would like to thank Davide for his contribution to a good partnership and wish him all the best for the future.”

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motosblog.fr have picked up a hot rumor regarding Noriyuki Haga that we can add to our WSBK silly season.

Haga is having a torrid 2010 season and has become a pale shadow of the rider, who just last year challenged Ben Spies in his title conquest. The Japanese rider is still struggling to find form and has clearly lost confidence in his 1198 and his place in the Xerox Ducati factory team is now on the line, but according to our French cousins, Haga has sounded out his former team manager Davide Tardozzi, who now runs the BMW Motorrad team, for a ride on the BMW 1000 RR next season.

Haga was also linked to a return to his old Yamaha team, but the lastest news as reported by GPone, the Japanese rider has also an offer from Kawasaki to team up with the currently injured Chris Vermeulen and give the new Ninja Superbike a fighting chance in the series that has seen the green team constantly struggle for results over the years.

If Haga should refuse the offer, the team still has Tom Sykes who hasn’t had a bad season and they can also count on Kawasaki Supersport rider Joan Lascorz, who is ready to make the jump to the World Superbike championship.

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After getting all the low-down on BMW’s two new first inline six-cylinder production bikes, the K 1600 GTL and the K 1600 GT and seeing the video on new adaptive headlight technology, BMW has now released a couple of teaser videos.

The videos are supposed to keep our interest up, unfortunately teaser is exactly the right word to describe these two videos because there’s absolutely no hint of a motorcycle anywhere, just some impressive scenery.

The tag line for the K 1600 GTL is ‘Lives the New Definition of Luxury on Two Wheels’ as the GTL is proposed as a long range tourer while the sportier K 1600 GT gets the ‘Lives the Essence of Grand Touring’ line.

Hit the jump for the second video.

Continue reading: 2011 BMW K 1600GTL and BMW K 1600 GT Teaser Videos

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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of BMW’s GS series, the German manufacturer at the 2010 BMW Motorrad Days at Garmisch released this exciting video covering the history of the GS from the R80G/s to the latest R 1200 GS to become the modern day icon of long range travel in any condition.

Source | motoblog.it

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World Superbike BMW Motorrad Motorsport team was at the Mugello doing development work with test rider Steve Martin, and as we anticipated last month, Jakub Smrz got his chance to ride Troy Corser’s official BMW S 1000 RR.

Team Pata B&G are not completely satisfied with their Ducati’s and are thinking of switching marques and are already in talks with Aprilia and BMW to see if either of these manufacturers are willing to supply them with the motorcycles.

On Tuesday Smrz re-learned the track (the last time he was at the Mugello was back when he was riding in the 125cc and 250cc GP championships) and learned at little about the difficulties in setting up the German superbike and on Wednesday the Czech rider put in about thirty laps with track temperatures reaching 60°C and an unofficial best lap in the 1.53’s.

Continue reading: Jakub Smrz tests BMW S 1000 RR at Mugello

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This year is the 30th anniversary of BMW’s GS-series and to mark the event the German manufacturer has realeased the “30 Years GS” limited edition versions of the BMW R 1200 GS, the R 1200 GS Adventure, the F 800 GS and the F 650 GS.

The limited edition “30 Year GS” range will be launched at BMW Motorrad Dealers on 19th June when prices will be announced.

Highlights of additional features and equipment with pics after the jump.

Continue reading: BMW GS 30th Anniversary Editions

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Three days after the World Superbike round at Assen, four official teams, Aprilia, BMW, Ducati and Yamaha all headed to the Misano Adriatico race track for a two day test session (Wednesday and Thursday), before next week’s important Monza round.

The Aprilia team has Max Biaggi and Leon Camier and official test rider Alex Hofmann on track, testing engine upgrades a new swingarm and a new positioned gas tank to try to enhance mass centralization that Biaggi tried out on Friday and Saturday practice sessions at Assen.

Troy Corser was with his BMW team continued testing and development of the ECU unit of his S 1000 RR and a new clutch.

While Yamaha Sterilgarda’s James Toseland and Cal Crutchlow concentrated on set-ups and electronics. Toseland did 69 laps while Crutchlow put in 87.

Continue reading: Superbike Testing at Misano with Aprilia, BMW, Ducati and Yamaha

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After just four rounds of the 2010 World Superbike season, we’re already talking silly season with the future of Ruben Xaus in the BMW team at risk, according to the recent gossip coming out after Assen.

After Xaus’ pull-out following four massive crashes during the Phillip Island round, where he also ran into the back of Noriyuki Haga’s Ducati and team manager Davide Tardozzi going to Spain to play the role of psychologist and trying to get Xaus mentally back in shape and stating that Xaus’ spot in the team wasn’t in doubt, and he would give his rider a couple of more rounds to to regain his lost confidence, but the Spaniard’s position in the team has slightly changed after Troy Corser’s excellent performance during the Assen round.

Xaus crashed four times during last weekend, once in qualifying, once in warm-up practice and twice in race 1 and in race 2 managed a tenth place, but now Tardozzi is now eyeing Jakub Smrz to replace Xaus in the German team’s 2011 line-up.

According to this week’s edition of Motorsprint, the volcanic Italian manager admitted that he’s thinking about having Smrz in BMW: “We like the guy and his name is the first on our 2011 list.”

Xaus is now officially warned.

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Team Reitwagen BMW rider Roland Resch will finally return to racing for the third round of this year’s Superbike World Championship at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia this weekend.

The Austrian rider who broke his collarbone in two places during free practice at Phillip Island, and was substituted by Makoto Tamada for the Portimao round, got back on his BMW S1000RR and did forty laps of the demanding Portimao circuit during last week’s tests to check his fitness and since he suffered no ill effects can rejoin his team for his first race of the season.

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The WSBK website has kindly put up this video so we can finally see how Ruben Xaus took out Noriyuki Haga during warm up practice at Phillip Island, and this fourth and final crash of the weekend resulted in Xaus pulling out of the first round.

While the latest rumors are saying that Xaus may lose his ride, BMW’s team manager Davide Tardozzi hasn’t given up on his Spanish rider and will be spending two days in Spain this week, talking to a dejected Xaus in order to help him regain his confidence:

“He has completely lost confidence and what I want is to to make him regain it. It might take a few races to see the Ruben we’re used to, but we’re counting on it. We know he’s a fast rider, aggressive, a quality rider. In 2008, a little more than a year ago, he won at Misano with a privateer Ducati. We want to bring him back to that level.”

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