Jorge Lorenzo has confirmed via his Twitter and Facebook pages that he’s been given the green light by his doctor to take part in this week’s final pre-season MotoGP test in Qatar.

The Spaniard has been doubtful that he would be able to test in Qatar after fracturing his first metacarpal and dislocating his thumb in a training incident last February.

Jorge Lorenzo:

“Today we are leaving for Qatar for the last Winter test. I think that it is important that we are there. The fracture happened less than five weeks ago, but we could not have missed this last test because it would have been negative for our preparation; we are not far from the first race of the season! The doctor has made a special carbon fibre protection and Dainese have modified my glove, in order to further protect the fracture, so we will see how we get on.”

Continue reading: MotoGP - Jorge Lorenzo confirms he'll be in Qatar

Here’s part 3 of the One on One series with the two gods of motocycle racing, Ben Spies and Eddie Lawson. This time they discuss training, teams and support and the similarities from today and the past. There’s some great photo’s from Lawson’s past in the video, with an interesting discussion on the meanest and toughest race bikes that exsisted, the 500cc.

Continue reading: Ben Spies and Eddie Lawson Video - Part 3

Yamaha USA has released part two of their One on One series with Ben Spies and Eddie Lawson. In this video both champions come across much more relaxed, especially Spies. Listen to these guys talk about competitivenss, fans and rider obligations and winning.

Enjoy.

Continue reading: More from Ben Spies and Eddie Lawson - Part 2

Yamaha MotorUSA has produced the another great video, it’s not the usual funny ones that we’ve all enjoyed last year, but this time its American racing legend and four times World Champion Eddie Lawson talking with the reigning WSBK Champion Ben Spies about the cutting edge and the evolution of motorcycle technology.

Continue reading: Ben Spies and Eddie Lawson Talk Motorcycles - Part 1 (w/video)

If there were any question about how important emerging markets are to motorcycle manufacturers just check out Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi’s and Jorge Lorenzo’s leathers and YZR-M1 bikes, that see the Semakin di Depan “One Step Ahead logos and the number of visits and superstar reception that these two high profile riders have received so far.

Rossi and Lorenzo just finished another whirlwind three day tour in Indonesia with Rossi came straight from testing in Malaysia last week, while Lorenzo flew out from Spain, where he has been recuperating at home from an injured hand.

Rossi visited Medan first, Indonesia’s third largest city, where he took part in a press conference alongside Yamaha Motor Indonesia top managemen and then visited PT. Alfa Scorpii, Indonesia’s second largest Yamaha Main Dealer, for the opening ceremony of its new show room along with over 400 customers and media and the moved on to Indonesia’s second largest city Surabaya, where he visited PT. Surya Timur Sakti Jatim, Indonesia’s largest Yamaha Main Dealer and finally he visited the DBL Arena to meet around 4,000 Yamaha customers.

Lorenzo meanwhile headed to Indonesia’s ‘Flower City’ Bandung, where he too took part in an important press conference to launch the ‘Semakin di Depan’ sponsorship. As well as the press conference he enjoyed a warm welcome at an exclusive fan meet and greet where he signed hundreds of autographs and met the local media. He moved on to Jogjakarta, the city where the traditional Indonesian art of batik is practiced, to meet more Yamaha customers there and take part in some outdoor activities at one of the biggest malls in Jogjakarta.

Continue reading: Rossi and Lorenzo Superstars in Indonesia

Following the MotoGP tests at Sepang last Thursday and Friday, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi jumped on a plane and headed to Bangkok, Thailand to take part in a two day promotional visit for Thailand Yamaha Motor.

The two Fiat Yamaha riders visited the Yamaha Riders Club, where they greeted Yamaha VIP customers and then took part in an exclusive TV interview with the Thailand Night Show.

On Sunday, Rossi and Lorenzo in front of almost 10,000 fans unveiled the new Yamaha Nuovo 150cc scooter with both riders taking a spin on special 46 and 99 replica versions of the new model. Before leaving, Rossi and Lorenzo had the chance to meet Mr. Nagashima, President of Thailand Yamaha Motor, and Mr. Yanagi, who will be Yamaha Motor Company’s new president, starting from 25th March.

Continue reading: Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo Visit Thailand

After Yamaha’s announcement that their will no longer be data sharing between Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo and the Spaniard’s nettled: “I don’t have anything to comment on this.” We thought that the story was laid to bed, instead Lorenzo in an interview with Spanish AS.com has come out with his opinion on the question.

“I have great respect for Valentino. He has an incredible talent and is an intelligent person. Last year I was close to beating him and with a step forward I can have the chance to succeed. I do not care what he says, I’m not interested in listening to that I copy his bike’s settings to win. I think about myself. In 2009, we compared data and there were races where we did well, in others both Valentino and I did worse.”

The choice to avoid data sharing in Yamaha has however surprised Lorenzo, at least from a company point of view:

“I don’t know why Yamaha made this choice, I believe that this will slow down development on the bike. However I’m not worried, I’m self sufficient.”

Lorenzo also explained the gap between him, Rossi and Casey Stoner in the Sepang test:

“I’m a bit of a diesel, I start slowly, and then build up for the to start the championship. Stoner and Valentino are now very fast, but there’s only a few tenths catch up on, I am not worried there’s 18 races and the championship is very long.”

Source | as.com via sportmediaset

Continue reading: Jorge Lorenzo: 'I believe Yamaha's decision will slow development'

We’ve got another video from the Fiat on the Web team with a Q&A session with Jorge Lorenzo.

Since we’re are a little wicked, we were wondering if one of Lorenzo’s answers: “Yes, I am happy to be with Valentino. I think that with no other riders I could learn more than with him.”” and after last year’s media dispute between the two riders regarding the exchange of data, if Lorenzo is still that happy with the Italian, now that Yamaha (more likely Rossi putting down both his feet) has decided there will be now be a limited amount of data sharing between the garages.

From Davide Brivio’s Q&A video:

In 2010 we will have small changes in this sense, compared to 2009 when the challenge was completely open during the weekend and during the practice. In consideration of the fact that the two riders are the main rivals for the championship, we have decided to respect this competition internally and to respect their own ways to race and to approach the competition, so during the weekend the two teams will be much more independent and the challenge will be closer. Not much information can be exchanged between the two teams. At YMC level, back at the office, the engineers can compare the data and the information, but the two teams inside the garage can work more independently from a technical point of view.

Continue reading: More from Yamaha: Jorge Lorenzo Q & A Interview

Part of the duties of a MotoGP rider when they launch their new season campaign is to answer a lot of questions, some interesting, some pointless.

Here’s a video of Valentino Rossi from Sepang, who talks about his training, his rivals, the six engine rule, the return of the 1000cc, Formula 1, his future and as always his eventual retirement.

Continue reading: Video Interview with Valentino Rossi at Sepang

Under the new rules (dumb, because the riders are hanging around the track or at the pool of the Pan Pacific Hotel) the first day of testing held at Sepang, was for test riders only. The weather is typically Malaysian and as Jorge Lorenzo is reporting from his Twitter page ‘Que calor!’ (it’s hot) and tomorrow’s weather forecast predicts rain.

Test riders included Vittoriano Guareschi, who hung up his Team Manager persona momentarily, by spending five hours testing the Ducati Desmosedici GP10 and not only for the factory Ducati team, but he also gave a shakedown test on all the Ducati satellite team bikes, a total of 10 motorcycles!

Suzuki had on track Nobuatsu Aoki with the GSV-R, while Honda had Akiyoshi Kosuke on the new and revolutionary looking RC212V. Yamaha had two test riders, Yamaha Norihiko Fujiwara e Wataru Yoshikawa with the YZR-M1.

The official riders will take to the track on tomorrow and Friday to test their new bikes and Fiat Yamaha will also offically unveil its 2010 YZR-M1 tomorrow with pics, a series of press conferences and backstage videos by the Fiat on the Web team.

For photos from Sepang, check out our Italian cousins at Motoblog, here and here.

Continue reading: MotoGP Sepang Test: Wednesday - Test Riders Only

The official 2010 Fiat Yamaha Team launch will take place at the Sepang circuit on February 4th at 10 in the morning (local time) before the official MotoGP tests that kick off on the same day.

It will be an old style presentation directly from the track, completely different compared to last year’s very successful on-line presentation with double interviews that were done at Yamaha headquarters at Gerno di Lesmo.

There’ll be the usual photos of the M1 with it’s 2010 livery, a press conference with the first impressions of the new bike by Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo and interviews with team managers Davide Brivio and Wico Zeelenberg, who replaced Daniele Romagnoli and Yamaha’s head honcho Lin Jarvis.

Continue reading: Yamaha MotoGP Team Launch at Sepang

Straight from Yamaha’s winning Supersport team with Cal Crutchlow, Wilco Zeelenberg has been confirmed as Daniele Romagnoli’s replacement and will be Jorge Lorenzo’s new Team Manager.

Zeelenberg, a former Gran Prix and Supersport rider, before joining Yamaha Motor Europe as a Technical Coordinator and test rider and in 2008 took over the role of Team Manager in Yamaha’s World Supersport Team.

With the appointment of Zeelenberg, Lorenzo’s side of the garage is almost complete after loosing Romagnoli to Tech3 Moto2 and Andrea Zugna, Cristian Battaglia and Carlo Luzzi to Honda HRC. Takashi Moriyawa who comes directly from Yamaha Motor Racing will be one of the engineers, while Lorenzo’s telemetry analyst has yet to be confirmed, but it could be Davide Morelli.

Continue reading: MotoGP : Wilco Zeelenberg, Jorge Lorenzo’s new Team Manager