Honda factory rider Dani Pedrosa seems set to beat Maverick Vinales to the dream seat at Yamaha and to be Rossi’s teammate for 2017 and beyond.
With Lorenzo confirmed at Ducati for the 2017 season, speculation is mounting on who will be joining Rossi at Yamaha next year.
While the favourite has been the young star Maverick Vinales currently riding for Suzuki, word from the MotoGP paddock is now suggesting that Dani Pedrosa could be set to make a shocking move from Honda to Yamaha.
According to MCN, Vinales was the clear favourite to replace Lorenzo at Yamaha, but the talks have fallen through after “hardball salary negotiations”. Pedrosa seems to be the new clear favourite after 11 seasons at Honda.
The move to secure Pedrosa makes perfect sense for Yamaha; replacing Lorenzo with a rider who has a similar riding style to the Spanish World Champion, and one who has a reputation as the dream teammate. This could work out very well for Rossi in his personal quest to secure a 10th World Championship.
But who will replace Pedrosa at the Honda factory team? Well our source says that this could be the chance British rider Cal Crutchlow to have a second go as a factory rider at Honda considering Crutchlow already has a good relationship with Honda.
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For UK citizen John Brown, a Honda dealership operator based in Manchester, his Christmas holiday got off to a good start when he became the world’s first customer to take deliver of his brand new Honda RC213V-S.
Brown took delivery of his prized machine on Christmas eve, and it will reportedly be added into his illustrious Honda bikes collection. Notably, the new Honda RC213V-S delivered to him isn’t the only rare Honda in said collection. Amongst them are other rarities from the famed Japanese red wing marque such as a RC30, SP1 and SP2. Also in Brown’s collection is a CBR900RR Fireblade and a VF1000F.
Brown was clearly delighted with his latest addition and relished in the opportunity to own the much hyped Honda RC213V-S. He added, “As soon as it went on sale I registered my interest on the website, and when I received the call from Honda to say my order was accepted it was a very special day for me.”
Based on the race- and championship winning Honda RC213V MotoGP bike, Honda’s racing arm, HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) began offering the street-legal RC213V-S for sale beginning July last year. Though the fanfare of Honda’s newest hyperbike was mixed due to the varied specifications, HRC still received a sizable numbers of orders.
The Honda RC213V-S reportedly commanded a price tag of £150,000 in the UK. HRC states that further deliveries have been slated for this year.
Source: Honda Europe via Asphaltandrubber and MCN
The move was officially announced recently and sees the Australian reconnecting with the team that granted him his first MotoGP world champion’s title back in 2007.
Stoner’s move away from HRC test-riding duties was long rumoured in the past few months, but both the Australian and HRC opted to officially announce his departure sometime just last week. In the process, the folks at HRC also stated their thanks and gratitude towards Stoner and his contributions over the last few years as a HRC test-rider.
After retiring from MotoGP in 2012, Stoner continued as a test-rider for HRC, but only rode sporadically since then, spending no more than a couple of days annually astride a Honda GP bike. Sources report that the move was made for two reasons, the first of which being the fact that the Australian kept good ties with the Italian team even after leaving it for HRC and secondly was the timely arrival of Gigi Dall’Igna as the head of Ducati Corse that made a return to Ducati even more attractive.
Presently, Ducati confirmed that Stoner will mainly focus on private tests and not riding in any of the official 2016 pre-season test sessions in Sepang, Phillip Island or Qatar. Whilst the prospect of Stoner returning on-track astride a Ducati GP bike for a wildcard outing appears to be slim, Ducati fans can instead rejoice at the fact he will be reappearing at next year’s World Ducati Week 2016 festivities in Bologna, Italy.
Sources: Asphaltandrubber and Visordown
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