Yesterday at the Ledenon circuit in the south of France, finally saw the first debut on a race track of Tech3’s Moto2 bike. The chassis was designed and built by chief engineer Guy Coulon who switched from Yamaha Tech3 MotoGP team to Moto2.

Instead of the official riders, Yuki Takahashi and Raffaele de Rosa doing the shakedown, the bike was ridden by French rider Florian Marino. The shakedown didn’t last very long because the bike suffered an elettrical problem that will be resolved before the official tests on December 9th at Valencia.

Continue reading: Moto2: Tech3 Bike gets first shakedown

Daniele Romagnoli, Jorge Lorenzo’s ex-team manager has found a home in Herve Poncharal’s Moto2 team, Tech3.

Romagnoli made the shock announcement at the Sepang GP citing that he wanted to return to the more technical aspects in a team.

The French Manager has hired 250cc rider Raffaele DeRosa (and Marco Simoncelli’s close friend) and will see the return to racing of Yuki Takahashi, who was axed from Scot Racing’s MotoGP team in favour of Gabor Talmacsi.

Romagnoli will crew chief for DeRosa, while Gary Reynders, the apple of discord between Colin Edwards and James Toseland has been moved to the Moto2 team to make room for Ben Spies crew chief, Tom Houseword.

Houseworth has been with Spies since his days in Yoshimura Suzuki (AMA) and followed the Amercian rider to WSBK’s and now in MotoGP. Spies has also brought to Tech3 his mechanic Gregory Wood.

Photo by Motogp.com

Continue reading: Moto2 - Daniele Romagnoli heads to Moto2 Tech3 Team

Scot Racing could throw up as many smoke screens as they wanted, announcing its intention to keep both Yuki Takahashi and Gabor Talmacsi. They could tell us that they were trying to get a couple of extra RC212Vs, that they needed to give each rider a spare bike in case of a flag-to-flag race. They could feed us news about Yuki Takahashi’s bad back, but we all knew in our cynical hearts that Talmacsi was riding on borrowed time when Gabor Talmacsi showed up in the Scot Racing Team garage with his big name sponsor MOL.

Honda, in their official press release with the preview of U.S GP this weekend, nine paragraphs down, announced that Takahashi has been politely removed from the team due to the usual financial difficulties:

From Laguna onwards, the Scot Racing Team will continue with Gabor Talmacsi in the MotoGP class. Due to unavoidable circumstances Yuki Takahashi will no longer ride with the team. This decision was reached after exhaustive attempts to find a way to continue with two riders, but the economic realities facing the team, combined with the increased cost involved in running two riders, has led to this regrettable outcome.

“For Honda as well as the Scot Racing Team, this is a sad announcement,” said HRC vice president Shuhei Nakamoto. “But we understand that the extremely challenging financial circumstances facing the team left them with no choice. Takahashi was the only Japanese rider in the MotoGP championship and of course Honda wanted to see him continue. But in the end the team made it clear that this outcome was impossible and we respect their decision. Honda will continue to support the Scot Racing Team in MotoGP with Gabor Talmacsi riding.”

Continue reading: Yuki Takahashi Axed from Scot Racing

According to the well informed gpone, Yuki Takahashi will not be racing in this weekend’s Red Bull U.S. GP at Laguna Seca, due to back problems.

Officially the Japanese rider has suffered from back problems that were worsened after his crash during the Catalunya GP, but the Clinica Mobile reported that Takahashi fractured his middle finger and picked up a haemithorax contusion in Spain and at Assen, after another crash, he severely bruised his right knee.

The Italian website also reported that the Takahashi may need to undergo surgery on his back and recovery could take at least three months.

Continue reading: No Laguna Seca GP for Takahashi

When you see crashes on TV they happen so fast that you really don’t see the dynamics, but check out this video that puts together all the pics of Takahashi wiping out Nicky Hayden and moves them in slow motion.

Continue reading: Takahashi - Hayden Crash Motegi Video