MotoGP Features

It gets dark pretty early at this time of year in Japan, and dusk was already settling in the wooded hillsides surrounding the Motegi circuit in 2001 when the peace and tranquillity was suddenly shattered by a roar that sent the MotoGP fraternity running to the pit wall to witness history in the making.

Two rule amendments have been agreed by the Grand Prix Commission ahead of this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix; the first involves yellow flag infringements and will be effective immediately, while a more significant change sees the end of race stoppages due to rain in the MotoGP class and will be effective from the start of next season.

Hindsight is a wonderful word. The Concise Oxford Dictionary sums it up perfectly - 'Wisdom after the event'. How many times in your life would a little wisdom after the event pushed you down a different path?

The provisional 2005 MotoGP world championship calendar has been released by the FIM - and shows several significant changes are planned for next season.

Visually Brno appears challenging with many long radius medium-speed turns and medium-length straights which lends the Brno Automotodrom to being one of the easier circuits technically speaking - on the 16 round MotoGP calendar.

World championship leader Valentino Rossi believes Sete Gibernau is his toughest rival for the 2004 world championship - but that Max Biaggi has a quicker bike.

With all MotoGP teams using radios in the pits due to the deafening sound of the MotoGP bikes, no-one has cottoned onto the idea of using the now legal-for-three-seasons rider to pits radio possibility... except Team Roberts: and some interesting figures have come out of it.

The tight and twisty nature of Sachsenring lends itself to close racing. This is partially influenced by its rather short overall length - only just scraping in on the minimum allowed distance to host a MotoGP race - while the looping layout itself has the reputation of making passing moves on fellow competitors difficult even at the best of times.

The Men and Motors TV magazine, Bikes Aloud is now available on DVD and Crash.net has ten copies to give away.

Part of the perennial success and popularity of the Assen event is its ability to modernise its facilities and layout without losing one iota of its unique character and appeal, to riders and fans alike.

Located in the beautiful Tuscan hills, Mugello boasts a sequence of undulating medium to high-speed corners combined with a straight where even the former 500cc two-strokes were capable of achieving 315kmh... but last year Ducati's Loris Capirossi hit 332.4kph - a mark expected to be 'easily' beaten this year.