Team Griffin Racing

Team Griffin Racing

Friday 28 February 2014

Ducati move to open class machines



It has been confirmed today by Gigi Dall’Igna that the Ducati MotoGP team will be moving from Factory machinery to the open class.

Although this will be a blow to Cal Crutchlow who moved to Ducati on the promise of Factory machinery, it appears that Andrea Dovizioso has had a much better test on the open bike and has been able to post much quicker times against the Factory Ducati.

Ducati's analysis points towards the Open class as being a more viable option, although restricted by the control ECU from Magneti Marelli it means they will get a softer option of Bridgestone, more engines and an extra 3 litres of fuel.

Monday 24 February 2014

Changes to the MotoGp Calendar

If your thinking of making a trip to a GP round this year then make sure you use the latest revision of the calendar. Luckily our trip to the Catalan GP hasn't been affected but Brazil and Aragon have been.

Grande Prêmio do Brasil has been removed

Gran Premio de Aragón has moved to the weekend of 26th-28th September.

Monday 10 February 2014

MotoGP 2014 Teams & Regulation Changes



For those of you who haven't caught up with the rule changes for this year, here is a brief overview:

The majority of technical regulations stay the same for 2014 with the exception of 3 restrictions. Factory bikes (Honda, Yamaha & Ducati) remain full prototype machines, still limited to 4 riders per manufacturer. Yamaha and Honda have both developed production bikes that comply with the new ‘open’ class regulations, these bikes can be hired by customer teams to complete under the new open regulations. The regulations also allow teams to develop their own bikes such as the PBM chassis'd Aprilia.
This table below explains the regulation differences between the classes.


Electronics*
Engines
Fuel
Factory
Factory Software
5
20 litres
Open
Standardised
12
24 litres
*all bikes must run ECU Hardware provided by Magneti Marelli


It is still unknown whether Ducati will switch to their open bike for 2014, they have until the 28th February to decide. For now, here is a split of which teams & riders are running which bikes.


Factory Teams / Riders
Honda Racing Corp
Marc Marquez
Dani Pedrosa

Yamaha Factory
Jorge Lorenzo
Valentino Rossi

Ducati Factory
Cal Crutchlow
Andrea Dovisioso

GO&FUN Gresini Honda (Satellite)
Alvaro Bautista

LCR Honda (Satellite)
Stefan Bradl

Tech3 Yamaha (Satellite)
Bradley Smith
Pol Espagaro

Pramac Ducati Racing (Satellite)
Andrea Iannone

 ‘Open’ Teams / Riders
GO&FUN Gresini (Honda)
Scott Redding

Pramac Racing
Yonny Hernandez

Cardion AB Racing (Honda)
Karel Abraham

NGM Forward Racing (Yamaha)
Colin Edwards
Aleix Espagaro

Avintia Racing (Yamaha)
Hector Barbera
Mike Di Meglio

Drive M7 Aspar (Honda)
Hiroshi Aoyama
Nicky Hayden

Ioda Project Racing (Aprilia)
Leon Camier
Danilo Petrucci

PBM (Aprilia)
Broc Parkes
Michael Laverty


Thursday 6 February 2014

Espagaro mixing it up front



Aleix Espagaro is mixing it with the big boys on the final day of testing at Sepang.

With just under 1.30hr to go he's sitting in 4th position, only 0.4s off Marquez. It seems like the teams are using the last session of the test to chase lap times with the top 4 all under the 2minute barrier.

Stay tuned in for a test report later.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Marquez continues to lead - Espagaro fifth


Marquez ends day 2 heading up the timesheets once again by breaking the 2-Minute barrier, the only rider to do so this year.

Excluding Marquez there has been some serious movers further down, notably Aleix Espagaro. Building on a good day yesterday Espagargo posted a fastest time of 2:00.547, only 0.6s off Marquez's fastest. What was more impressive was the consistency of his lap times throughout the day, lapping several stints in the mid 2:00 minutes. He is certainly creating a great base to go forward into the final day tomorrow.

When dorna introduced the CRT class it seemed like it was just a grid filling exercise. They circulated at the back, hugely off the pace of the factory bikes and created their own little championship. Now with the current open class regulations it's evidently brought the two classes much closer together, so much so Ducati are considering moving over all together.

By the end of tomorrow we will have a much better idea of progress, but for now, it's looking promising for the open teams and not so good for the Factory Ducati's.

All of Fridays times can be found here:

http://resources.motogp.com/files/testresults/MotoGP_Test__Sepang_combined_sessions_2.pdf?version=1391595398





Tuesday 4 February 2014

Marquez leads in Sepang



The first day of the 2014 MotoGP test season has kicked off at the Sepang circuit with Marc Marquez starting where he left off... Leading from the front. He leads Rossi by 0.5s with Pedrosa jumping ahead of Lorenzo 0.1s further behind.

The talking point running up to the first test was the split between the Factory and Open bikes. With only 5 engines, 20 litres of fuel and a control ECU against the open class' 12 engines and 24 litres the gap is rapidly closing between the two, Espagaro posted a 2:01.419 which is only 1.1s off Marquez's time.

Eyes will be firmly fixed on Ducati who are once again lagging far behind the other factory bikes and have reportedly made a move towards switching to the open class. We should probably hang off any judgment just yet, it's day one and there's plenty of time for a Ducati resurgence, but I won't be holding my breath!

Full Timings can be found here:




Monday 3 February 2014

A Night at the Races - Arenacross 2014 - LG Arena

Coming from Weston super Mare the yearly beach race became a prominent part of wet autumn weekends and after moving away for university I've not returned in quite some time. After dragging the missus around the country and over to France for the Moto GP I thought I would take her to see something a bit different!

Firstly I'd like to say that it's great to see some big names (Garmin, Monster, Yamaha, Honda & Hyundai) supporting the resurgence of UK supercross, now dubbed Arenacross. The second notable mention was the arena and the track, a great layout accompanied by a freestyle ramp through the middle which had some real thought put into it, performing impeccably all night, showing very little degradation.



The night was split into essentially two parts. The qualifiers and the finals; these were were split up by the rookie, youth and freestyle sections. The action was fast paced and the evening very well run, it never felt like you were trying to fill the time between races with idle chat.

The first race atmosphere is remarkable, I don't think I have ever experienced anything like 10+ bikes hurtling across a dirt filled arena towards a very tight hairpin! What was probably more impressive was the 7-10 year olds on 65SW bike absolutely going for it!




What really topped off the night was the addition of freestyle sections, this was probably what impressed us the most and not really possible to put into words! Instead I will add the link to probably the most impressive sequence of the whole night.



So to round up, if you get the opportunity to go it's a great night out, 3 solid hours of adrenaline packed action for all the family!

3 Rounds remain, don't miss out!