As soon as the racing season is over most riders head to their surgeons to remove all the hardware they’ve been carrying after injuries, that keeps them together and in condition to compete.

Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo underwent surgery last week to remove a plate from his collarbone that he had since 2005 and LCR Honda’s Randy De Puniet also went under the knife again, to remove the screws that were inserted in his ankle after fracturing it in a motocross training accident.

Well… It has been a very quick and easy operation. After the crash in August I worked hard to get the best from the bike but sometimes it has been very painful for me. After the races my ankle was always very swollen but now I am very satisfied because the size is normal. I am going to remove the stitches in 18 days and after that will begin my rehabilitation training to be in good form at Sepang in February.”

Source | lcr

Continue reading: Randy DePuniet undergoes Surgery

Andrea Dovizioso took his first ever MotoGP win at Donington Park in treacherous track conditions and unpredicatable weather which saw two satellite riders, Colin Edwards and Randy DePuniet take their places on the podium.

Coming in a lonely fourth was a happy Alex DeAngelis. Toni Elias led the first two laps fell back to fifth and then crashed on the 8th lap.

The race also saw Jorge Lorenzo crash out while leading in the 9th lap after breaking on the slippery white line and also saw Valentino Rossi crash while he was leading on the 20th lap, but the Italian was able to restart and finish in fifth in front of homeboy James Toseland.

Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden both gambling on rain tires, the only two riders to do so on the grid and finished 14th and 15th but were lapped by the other riders.

Continue reading: MotoGP Donington – Andrea Dovizioso takes his 1st MotoGP Victory

Here’s a recap of what several MotoGP riders had to say after today’s free practice at the historic Assen circuit.

Randy De Puniet -1st 1’37.842

“It has been a big surprise for me! In the beginning of the session I was not pretty comfortable as I started on soft tyre and my front feeling was very bad: I had some movements and could not lap as I would like. Unfortunately the second bike set up was almost the same so we decided to go out on a harder front tyre. The feeling was much better but I made some small mistakes. I knew that my rhythm on this track could be faster and so I went back to the garage to swap on to the no. 1 bike which was set–up like the test in Barcelona. Thanks to some quick adjustments on the chassis geometry and suspension regulations I finally set the pace in the last 5 laps and this makes me very happy. However it is all very close up to the top so I need to stay focused”.

Valentino Rossi - 2nd 1′37.847

“I’m happy about today’s practice because I was fast from the start and I could ride the bike how I want. This is very important because it means that the modifications we made in Barcelona are working here too, even though this is a different type of track. Now we have one or two small things to fix in order to improve our overall performance and lap time further. Anyway, we’re there, second by just a tiny bit and feeling good. It seems there is a doubt for the weather on Saturday which is a pity; of course I hope it’s dry but if it’s going to be a wet race then I hope we have the chance for one or two wet laps before the race in warm-up otherwise it will be quite hard.”

Casey Stoner - 3rd 1’37.877

“This afternoon went really well for us and we’ve started off where we left off in Catalunya, which is a great sign. Generally with this bike we’ve had to make a lot of changes from track to track and we usually have to spend the first session working really hard to adapt the set-up, but on this occasion it feels good out of the box. We tried a couple of things during the session but once we got onto the harder front tyre it all clicked into place and we could have gone a lot faster but I got held up on a couple of laps and then on my last lap I pushed the front a bit too hard and ran wide. We still have some improvements to make but generally speaking it is very positive to start out on the pace - especially at such a windy circuit, because usually we struggle in the wind.”

Continue reading: MotoGP Assen - Rider Quotes after FP1

Randy DePuniet was the surprise in today’s free practice at Assen when he hit the top of the timesheets clocking in at 1.37.842.
The Frenchman’s LCR Honda donned a pair of soft tires in the final minutes of the practice and taking a tow from Chris Vermeulen, bumped off Valentino Rossi from the top of the charts by 0.005s.

Casey Stoner was 3rd just 0.035 off DePuniet, putting in more runs than he usual does, while Jorge Lorenzo was fourth.

Andrea Dovizioso fifth, using the Honda chassis that he tested at Barcelona and team mate Dani Pedrosa, who is still recovering from a cracked bone was sixth.

Colin Edwards who was running first during the middle stages of the practice was seventh, but only 0.363s from today’s leader.

Chris Vermeulen eighth, James Toseland ninth, and looking a little more confortable on his Bridgestone tires while Loris Capirossi closed the top ten, less than 6 tenths of second from DePuniet.

Continue reading: MotoGP Assen FP1 - Randy DePuniet Surprise

These two Playboy Bunnies must have had an excellent effect on Randy DePuniet, who qualified 5th yesterday, less that 2 tenths from 4th place Valentino Rossi.

Continue reading: Randy DePuniet's Bunnies

Lucio Cecchinello has confirmed that sponsorship deal with Playboy has gone through and this gallery of photos proves it. The Playboy logo will be on Randy DePuniet’s LCR Honda’s livery and leathers starting this weekend at the IRTA tests and during the Spanish and Japanese GP’s.

Here’s what Cecchinello had to say:

“We have been in touch with Playboy US for a long time and, taking advantage of the opportunity given by the presence of some American top executives part of Hugh Hefner entourage during his latest visit to Europe, we have defined the guidelines of a project allowing us to start negotiations with some of this evergreen brand’s global licensees. Playboy Italy has positively assessed the project and confirmed the sponsorship for the early stage of the season (MotoGP Championship Launch during the tests in Jerez de la Frontera, GP in Japan and Spain as Title Sponsor, GP in Qatar…unfortunately, we all know the kind of problems for that) linking it to their activities in the view of relaunching the magazine in Italy. Currently, there are further ongoing negotiations with licensees in more countries, who have been presented with our “projects by event” concept, which does not imply any millionaire investments”.

Aldo Drudi is the designer of this livery and you can check out Italy’s Playboy website to see even more hotter photos here and backstage videos and also see LCR Honda revamped website.

Continue reading: Playboy and LCR Honda

Italians like to gossip and the media likes to exaggerate and sometimes they come up with pure bull, so take this piece of so called news that’s on Italian website Motocorse as something just fun to read.

It seems that owner and manager of LCR Honda, Lucio Cecchinello has pulled out the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, because it looks like that he’s found a brand new sponsor that will soon grace Randy DePuniet’s Honda’s livery and is known in the whole world: Playboy!

It’s not official and everyone involved is hiding behind the usual no comment, but Cecchinello was seen at the La Vecchia Firenze restaurant in Montecarlo together with Hugh Hefner, right before Hefner’s guest appearance at Italian Song Festival in San Remo last February. The Italian manager was also got invited to the exclusive party held by Playmedia Company and Playboy’s Italian editor at the Victory Morgana Bay restaurant.

UPDATE:
According to Cecchinello who talked to gpone, the gossip is true!

Continue reading: Playboy to sponsor LCR Honda?

In almost every Grand Prix season some rider breaks a certain record and this year was no different. We’re not talking about Valentino Rossi’s 373 points earned in just one season or Casey Stoner’s circuit breaking lap records, but the number of crashes. 876 to be precise.

Between free practices, qualifying and races, the 125cc, 250cc and Motogp series logged up this amazing but frightening number. This is an average of 48 crashes for each race weekend. It is however true that this was the wettest season in the history of the series, with 16 out of 18 GP’s having at least one day of rain in the official three days.

Who heads the list of the most crashes in 2008? Randy DePuniet with 22 crashes in Motogp, Mattia Pasini and Karel Abraham with an equal but unenviable record of 23 in the 250cc class, Bradley Smith and Jules Cluzel who share 19 each in 125cc’s.

Crash stats numbers for the past seasons in the next part of the post:

Continue reading: 2008 Grand Prix Crash Record