This weekend’s Sachsenring GP has been pretty calm so far with no rider vs another (just Barbera and Hayden in qualifying ,with the Spaniard getting a €1000 euro fine for flipping a finger at the Ducatista), no sniping and the only topics worth talking about have been about Bridgestone’s tires and the fact they need to bring more, Valentino Rossi struggling more than ever on the GP11.1, so some rumors and gossip have surfaced, so here they are.

HRC due the continuing economic crisis and the problems with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, have at the moment confirmed only two factory bikes next season, one for Casey Stoner and one for Dani Pedrosa, while Andrea Dovizioso who is currently third in the standings with all probability will be left without an official ride and end up in a satellite Honda team, and not even a factory bike to his name.

Marco Simoncelli currently rides a full blown RC212V factory bike, but will not have one next year unless team manager Fausto Gresini pulls out his own euros to pay for it, however Simoncelli is a big bleep on Ducati’s radar and his dad and ‘consultant’ Carlo Pernat are in talks with the Italian manufacturer, because it seems that Phillip Morris (Marlboro) is willing to dish out some big sponsorship money to give this popular Italian a third factory bike.

Continue reading: MotoGP gossip and rumors from Sachsenring

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Don’t you just love silly season, especially this year? After Sportmediaset’s faux pas (they still haven’t retracted their original story) spilling the beans that Casey Stoner had signed with Honda HRC, now Swiss website Speedweek is reporting that the deal is officially done.

According to the article, Stoner penned the deal with the Honda factory team just before this weekend’s Silverstone GP and will be receiving five million euros from the Japanese manufacturer, who through Livio Suppo, never denied their intentions to steal the Aussie rider from Ducati.

So far Stoner has had a disappointing season with the new GP10 bike, crashing out of two of the four races with unexplainable front tire problems and his highest placement was fourth at the Italian GP after struggling for most of the race behind Marco Melandri and Randy de Puniet.

If this rumor is confirmed, we’re going to see some sparks flying in the HRC garage for the rest of this season with Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso both vying to retain their position in the team, unless Suppo has already offered the stars and the moon to Jorge Lorenzo in order to make Honda’s dream team come true.

The next few races are going to be interesting, so keep an eye on those Repsol boys.

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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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During an interview with the BBC2, Valentino Rossi warned that Yamaha must choose between keeping him or team-mate Jorge Lorenzo for the 2011 MotoGP season.

“Yamaha have to decide between me and Jorge for 2011,” he said. “I have a great option to join Ducati.”

The interview has triggered hundreds of comments and Rossi in today’s Valencia official tests talking to Gpone (who were upset because according to them Rossi launches certain messages only through the foreign press) tried to explain what he meant when he talked to Suzy Perry in the long BBC interview.

“She asked me what other possibilities could there be and I said Ducati, but only because it was by exclusion. I’ve never talked to Ducati about the future, but like I said yesterday I’ve already been in Honda, and I won there so if one were to think of something else it would have to be Ducati, but it’s more probable that I’ll stay with Yamaha.”

“Yes,I’m still having fun and I’m still in great shape and I’ve still have all the reasons to continue, but there’s still another year to go and it’s almost sure that I’ll continue and I’m almost sure that it will be with Yamaha.”

Rossi also clarified his position on team mate choices :

“… to make things clear I have no power or can I veto who is going to be my teammate, I talk to Yamaha for myself, I can’t tell them who I want or don’t want as a team mate, Yamaha decides what they want to do.”

You can listen to Rossi’s interview in Italian with gpone here.

Source | bbc

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