VALENTINO ROSSI RIDES DUCATI SUPERBIKE

crash.net.
Valentino Rossi rides Ducati Superbike at Misano.
Just days before the first MotoGP test of 2011, Valentino Rossi has taken part in a surprise test on a Ducati Superbike at Misano (pictured).



In a repeat of the kind of tests he conducted last year on a Yamaha R1, to gauge the level of his recovery from a broken leg, the Italian MotoGP superstar used the 1198 ride to evaluate his fitness after shoulder surgery in mid-November.

Next week's Sepang test, from February 1-3, will be the first time Rossi has ridden a MotoGP bike since the shoulder operation, and also mark his track debut in full Ducati Marlboro colours.

“First of all, thanks to Filippo (Preziosi) and to Ducati, who organised this test,” said Rossi. “Misano Circuit let us use the track on a day when Mattia (Pasini) was planning to ride in order to confirm his own condition.

"The track more or less confirmed what we expected: the shoulder is painful—especially under braking, when the front area hurts, where they stitched the tendon. Movement is stable enough, and we're also doing not so bad with endurance, but apart from that, it hurts a lot and isn't very strong.

"Let's hope it gets a little better in these next few days before the test in Malaysia. Once we're there, we'll work with the riding position in an effort to make the most of the situation and collect important information with the Desmosedici, even though I'm not in top form.

"Today I did a total of 25 laps on the 1198 Superbike, which is sort of a 'historic' motorcycle for Ducati: beautiful and fast. I liked it!”

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OFFICIAL RIDER &TEAM LINE UP FOR MOTOGP 2011

The FIM has released a provisional entry list for the 2011 MotoGP World Championship.

The 17-rider entry list contains no surprises, although it does confirm that reigning world champion's Yamaha are at present without a title sponsor after the loss of Fiat.

Ducati's title sponsor Marlboro is not officially listed due to tobacco advertising restrictions...

1 Jorge Lorenzo SPA Yamaha Factory Racing (Yamaha)

4 Andrea Dovizioso ITA Repsol Honda Team (Honda)

5 Colin Edwards USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (Yamaha)

7 Hiroshi Aoyama JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini (Honda)

8 Hector Barbera SPA Aspar Team (Ducati)

11 Ben Spies USA Yamaha Factory Racing (Yamaha)

14 Randy De Puniet FRA Pramac Racing Team (Ducati)

17 Karel Abraham CZE Cardion AB Motoracing (Ducati)

19 Alvaro Bautista SPA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP (Suzuki)

24 Toni Elias SPA LCR Honda MotoGP (Honda)

26 Dani Pedrosa SPA Repsol Honda Team (Honda)

27 Casey Stoner AUS Repsol Honda Team (Honda)

35 Cal Crutchlow GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (Yamaha)

46 Valentino Rossi ITA Ducati Team (Ducati)

58 Marco Simoncelli ITA San Carlo Honda Gresini (Honda)

65 Loris Capirossi ITA Pramac Racing Team (Ducati)

69 Nicky Hayden USA Ducati Team (Ducati)

From:www.crash.net

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THE MOTO GP ENGINE DEFINITION

2-stroke and 4-stroke – 2-stroke engines were predominant in the World Championship until the switch to the 990cc 4-stroke class in 2002, reflecting production trends, as 2-stroke bikes became increasingly popular from the 1960s through to the 1990s.



If 2-stroke engines proved more powerful than 4-strokes with similar engine capacities and similar rev counts, 4-strokes engines are more energy efficient and greener. This is because 4-strokes have a dedicated lubrication system, while 2-stroke engines burn a mixture of oil and gas.
As most manufacturers shifted their production towards bigger 4-stroke powered machines, the move to a 4-stroke prototype formula only seemed natural.
The key difference between the two types of engine lies in the combustion process: the four ‘strokes’ refer to the intake, compression, combustion and exhaust movements which occur during two crankshaft rotations per working cycle.
The 2-stroke internal combustion engine differs from the 4-stroke engine in that it completes the same four processes in only two strokes of the piston.
Single cylinder, two cylinder, four cylinder and six cylinder engines – While technical rules restrict the 125cc World Championship to single cylinder engines and Moto2 to the Official Engine, MotoGP bikes can have from one cylinder to six cylinders or more.
According to the FIM rulebook, the number of cylinders from one to six, or more, dictate what the minimum accepted weight of the bike will be, as ballast may be added to achieve it. Due to unit cylinder performance and power-to-weight ratio, all the MotoGP manufacturers now use four cylinder engines.
However, those engines come in different forms, as some factories, such as Ducati, Honda and Suzuki currently opt for V4 architecture, while Yamaha and Kawasaki have developed ‘inline four’ engines.
With V4’s the cylinders and pistons are aligned separately to each other, so that they take on a ‘V-shape’ from an angle looking along the crankshaft axis. This configuration decreases the total height, length and weight of the engine, in comparison with straight engine inline equivalents.
The choice of engine architecture has as much to do with design philosophy and the manufacturer’s heritage as with weight transfer and goals in terms of bike ‘rideability’.
Meanwhile, the terms 125cc, 600cc (Moto2), 800cc (MotoGP) used to describe the three current categories in the World Championship simply refer to the ‘engine displacement’ or ‘cubic capacity’ of the respective machinery.

source:www.motogp.com
www.en.wikipedia.org

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THE MOTOGP DEVELOPMENT ENGINE

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE AGES

The biggest change in the premier class over the years has been the switch from 4-stroke, to 2-stroke engines, and back to 4-stroke in 2002, reflecting the need for technical progression and innovation in the sport - in keeping with the development of production bikes.





In the early days of the World Championship the premier class was dominated by 4-stroke machinery from mostly European manufacturers. The early 4-stroke engines were cumbersome, heavy, required a lot of maintenance and were never the most reliable of units.
Through the 1960s Japanese manufacturers such as Suzuki and Yamaha started to make their presence felt in the smaller cylinder classes with 2-stroke machinery. The lighter 2-stroke presented more possibilities for tuning and was seen as the future of the sport.
Although the 1970s and even 1980s saw a period of technical change that permitted even private ‘built in the garage’ motorcycles to go Grand Prix racing it was the might of the Japanese engineering and initiative that would soon provide the most competitive racing tools.

THE EMERGENCE OF 2-STROKE

As the Japanese slowly forged ahead with 2-stroke technology, the 4-strokes would fade out in a matter of seasons as the 500cc four cylinder 2-stroke became available on a production scale from Japan.
With the 2-strokes becoming more reliable and more powerful the engines actually threw more emphasis onto the rest of the motorcycle and evolution began at a rapid rate through the 1980s. Tyres, suspension, aerodynamics and even chassis design all saw a wealth of development.
In the early 1990s speeds had reached a peak in MotoGP. The 500cc bikes were harder and faster to ride than ever as an all-Japanese premier class sought to push the performances of the machines to the limit and new heights. By 1992 a breakthrough emerged when Honda started to experiment with a revised firing order on their all-conquering NS500.

BIG BANG & THE SCREAMER
Dubbed ‘Big Bang’ the revised crankshaft mechanism placed an emphasis more on acceleration than outright top speed and Mick Doohan went on to dominate the class on the new bike. Honda also produced a V-twin version of their four cylinder motorcycle which helped privateers remain competitive against the factory bikes and for the first time technical emphasis leaned more towards corner speed than outright horse-power; a trait that remains present to a certain degree in MotoGP today.
By the late 1990s Doohan had reverted back to the ‘harsher’ engine order in his quest for more speed. Nicknamed the ‘Screamer’, this and the ‘Big Bang’ version of the NS500 won World Championships from 1994 to 1999.
In 2000 Suzuki enjoyed a last hoorah on the RGV 500 2-stroke; a motorcycle which developed from predecessors that had originally dominated the class back in the late 1970s and early 80s.

4-STROKE 990cc

With 2-stroke technology reaching a plateau improved 4-stroke engines marked the way forward. The MotoGP landscape changed in 2002 and the last six seasons have again seen a massive acceleration in the technical possibilities with variable cylinder structures and quantities, telemetry, data collection and manually adjustable engine mapping switches now standard.
MotoGP is now a highly evolved and scientific competition with traction control and electronics playing an important role in the delivery of the power and adjusting the balance of the motorcycle to make the best use of the engine’s performance.
The MotoGP category saw the engine size reduced from 990cc to 800cc in 2007, with an aim to reduce speed. So far the speeds have remained the same but the size and dynamics of the new motors have placed more focus on the corner speed of the machinery, as opposed to the brute power of the 990s.
In line with cost reduction policies, engine restrictions have been enforced since 2009 and for the first time in 2010, each rider will only have 6 engines at their disposal for the whole season. Limiting the number of engines means the manufacturers will have to produce more reliable powerplants, which induces reducing their power output and revs, hence slowing down the overall increase in performance of the bikes.
A move to a 1000cc formula is planned for 2012, accompanied with further restrictions than during the 990cc era. The number of cylinders will be limited to 4 and the maximum cylinder bore will be 81mm, for bikes with a minimum weight of 153kg. Under the 2012 technical rules, 800cc bikes will also be allowed with a minimum weight of 150kg.

MOTO2

The Moto2 class, a new 4-stroke 600cc category, was announced in December 2008 and from the start of the 2010 season replaced the 250cc category.
Moto2 is aimed as a prestigious yet cost-effective accompaniment to MotoGP, allowing riders to continue their development on the way to the premier class. The bikes are powered by a 600c 4-stroke Honda engine which produces around 140bhp, with a prototype chassis which is free from limitation and the design and construction of which is free within the constraints of the FIM Grand Prix Technical Regulations.

SMALLER CLASSES

The 125 and the former 250cc classes have remained hosts to 2-stroke engines, being the original homes of the 2-stoke. Firms such as Derbi, Kreidler and Bultaco were 50cc, 80cc and 125cc competitors with 2-strokes in the 1960s and 2-strokes littered the 350cc division.
Outside the premier class 2-strokes permitted the most cost-effective means of racing and being competitive. The 2-stroke prospered with carburetion, tuning and set-up becoming a specialised skill that saw a host of names in the Grand Prix paddock making their names through the late 1970s, 80s and into the 90s.
In modern times the accepted wisdom is that the limits of 2-stroke technology have been largely reached. Honda’s announcement that they will cease development on their quarter-litre bikes perhaps provides proof that there is no further ground for significant progress

source:www.motogp.com

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THE BIOGRAPHY OF CARLO UBBIALI

Carlo Ubbiali (born September 22, 1929) is an Italian nine-time World Champion motorcycle road racer. In Ubbiali was born in Bergamo, Lombardy. In 1949, the first year of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, he finished in fourth place in the 125cc class riding an MV Agusta. That year, he also won a gold medal in the International Six Days Trial. He switched to Mondial for the 1950 season




Ubbiali won his first World Championship for Mondial in 1951. After losing his crown to Cecil Sandford in 1952, he re-signed with MV Agusta. He went on to become their top rider, winning six 125cc titles and three 250cc crowns and scoring double championships in 1956, 1959 and 1960. Ubbiali was also a five-time winner at the prestigious Isle of Man TT. He rarely put a wheel wrong as evidenced by the fact that he never suffered a serious crash during his 12 year Grand Prix career.
He retired at the age of 30 while still in his prime. Until Giacomo Agostini came along, he was considered Italy's greatest motorcycle racer. His nine World Championships tie him with Mike Hailwood and Valentino Rossi for third place on the championship win list behind only Giacomo Agostini and Ángel Nieto. In 2001, the F.I.M. inducted Ubbiali into the MotoGP Hall of Fame.
the 1950s, he was a dominant force in the smaller classes of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Active years1949 - 1960 TeamsMondial, MV Agusta Grand Prix71 Championships125cc - 1951, 1955, 1956, 1958-1960 250cc- 1956, 1959, 1960 Wins39 Podium Finishes68 First Grand Prix1949 125cc Swiss Grand Prix First Win1950 125cc Ulster Grand Prix Last Win1960 125cc Nations Grand Prix Last Grand Prix1960 125cc Nations Grand Prix Biography
Ubbiali was born in Bergamo, Lombardy. In 1949, the first year of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, he finished in fourth place in the 125cc class on a works Mondial. That year, he also won a gold medal in the International Six Days Trial.
He won his first World Championship for Mondial in 1951. After losing his crown to Cecil Sandford in 1952, he signed with the Italian marque, MV Agusta. He went on to become their top rider, winning five 125cc titles and three 250cc crowns and scoring double championships in 1956, 1959 and 1960. He rarely put a wheel wrong as evidenced by the fact that he never suffered a serious crash during his 12 year Grand Prix career.
He retired at the age of 30 while still in his prime. Until Giacomo Agostini came along, he was considered Italy's greatest motorcycle racer. His nine World Championships ties him with Mike Hailwood for third place on the championship win list behind only Agostini and �ngel Nieto. The FIM named him a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2001.

source:www.motogp.com
www.en.wikipedia.org

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THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN SURTEES

John Surtees, OBE (born 11 February 1934 in Tatsfield, Surrey) is a former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver from England. He was 500cc motorcycle World Champion in 1956, Formula One World Champion in 1964, and remains the only person to have won World Championships on both two and four wheels. He is also the ambassador of the Racing Steps Foundation.
Surtees is the son of a south London motorcycle dealer. He had his first professional outing in the sidecar of his father's Vincent, which they won. However, when race officials discovered Surtees's age, they were disqualified. He entered his first race at 15 in a grasstrack competition. In 1950, when he was 16, he joined Vincent as an apprentice; whilst with them he bought his first car, a Jowett Jupiter.[citation needed] He made his first headlines in 1951 when he gave Norton star Geoff Duke a strong challenge in an ACU race at the Thruxton Circuit.


In 1955, Norton race chief Joe Craig gave Surtees his first factory sponsored ride aboard the Nortons. He finished the year by beating reigning world champion Duke at Silverstone and then at Brands Hatch. However, with Norton in financial trouble and uncertain about their racing plans, Surtees accepted an offer to race MV Agustas.
In 1956 Surtees won the 500cc world championship. In this he was assisted by the FIM's decision to ban Geoff Duke for six months because of his support for a riders' strike for more starting money. In the 1957 season, the MV Agustas were no match for the Gileras and Surtees battled to a third place finish aboard a 1957 MV Agusta 500 Quattro.
When Gilera and Moto Guzzi pulled out of Grand Prix racing at the end of 1957, Surtees and MV Agusta went on to dominate the competition in the two big classes. In 1958, 1959 and 1960, he won 32 out of 39 races and became the first man to win the Senior TT at the Isle of Man TT
Racing career
In 1960, at the age of 26, Surtees switched from motorcycles to cars full time, making his Formula 1 debut racing for Lotus in the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. He made an immediate impact with a second place finish in only his second Formula One race, at the 1960 British Grand Prix, and a pole position at his third race, the 1960 Portuguese Grand Prix. After spending the 1961 season with the Cooper racing team and the 1962 season with Reg Parnell Racing, he moved to Scuderia Ferrari in 1963 and won the World Championship for the Italian team in 1964.
On September 25, 1965, Surtees had a life-threatening accident at the Mosport Circuit (Ontario, Canada) whilst practicing a Lola T70 sports racing car. A front upright casting had broken. Surtees made a full recovery and competed with a T70 in the inaugural Can Am series in 1966, winning three races of six to become champion over other winners Dan Gurney (Lola), Mark Donohue (Lola) and Phil Hill (Chaparral) as well as the likes of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon (both in McLarens).
The 1966 season saw the introduction of new, larger 3-litre engines to Formula One. Surtees's debut with Ferrari's new F1 car was at the 1966 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, where he qualified and finished a close second behind Jack Brabham's 3-litre Brabham BT19. A few weeks later, Surtees led the Monaco Grand Prix, pulling away from Jackie Stewart's 2-litre BRM on the straights, before the engine failed. A fortnight later Surtees survived the first lap rainstorm which eliminated half the field and won the Belgian Grand Prix.
Surtees arrived at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans expecting to be partnered with Mike Parkes; instead Ferrari team manager Eugenio Dragoni had put "big John" with Ludovico Scarfiotti. Surtees was not happy and quit Ferrari. [citation needed] Surtees finished the season driving for the Cooper-Maserati team, winning the last race of the season and finishing second in the drivers' championship, 14 points behind Brabham.
Surtees moved to the new Japanese Honda team for the 1967 season. He took pole position for the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, but the car's V12 engine suffered from reliability problems in the race. At the Italian Grand Prix Surtees slipstreamed Jack Brabham to take Honda's second F1 victory by 0.2 seconds. Surtees finished fourth in the 1967 drivers' championship.
The same year, Surtees drove in the Rex Mays 300 at Riverside, near Los Angeles, in a United States Auto Club season-ending road race. This event pitted the best American drivers of the day — normally those who had cut their teeth as professional drivers on oval dirt tracks — against veteran Formula One Grand Prix drivers, including Jim Clark and Dan Gurney.
In 1970, Surtees formed his own race team, the Surtees Racing Organisation, and spent nine seasons competing in Formula 5000, Formula 2 and Formula 1 as a constructor. He retired from competitive driving in 1972, the same year the team had their greatest success when Mike Hailwood won the European Formula 2 Championship. The team was finally disbanded at the end of 1978.
After retired for racing
For a while in the 1970s Surtees ran a motorcycle shop in West Wickham, Kent. He continues his involvement in motorcycling, participating in classic events with bikes from his stable of vintage racing machines. He also remains involved in single-seater racing cars and held the position of chairman of A1 Team Great Britain, in the A1 Grand Prix racing series from 2005-7. His son, Henry competed in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, Formula Renault UK Championship and the Formula BMW UK championship for Carlin Motorsport, before he died whilst racing in the Formula 2 championship at Brands Hatch on 19 July 2009.
In 1996, John Surtees was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. The FIM honoured him as a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2003. Already a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours

source:www.motogp.com
www.en.wikipedia.org

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THE BIOGRAPHY OF FREDDIE SPENCER

Freddie Spencer will be forever synonymous with the beginning of the wave of phenomenal American racing talent that dominated the podiums of the premier class through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Spencer’s historic 250cc and 500cc double title winning season in 1985 has also never been repeated and marks his place in the annals of the sport.
Born in 1961 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Freddie Spencer began riding motorcycles as a toddler at the age of four. At five, he was competing in TT Scramble dirt track events in Dallas, Texas. By the age of eleven, Spencer had already won ten state motorcycle racing championships in Short Track and Dirt Track events.



In 1972, Spencer made his first foray into roadracing, competing at Green Valley Raceway in Dallas, Texas. The youngster's dirt track experience paid off. By 1977, he had won twelve national roadracing championships competing in both AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) and WERA sanctioned race events.

In 1978, Spencer began his professional roadracing career at the age of 18. That year, he won every race in the AMA 250cc Grand Prix Road Race "Novice" Division while en route to winning the AMA National Championship. The following year, 1979, Spencer won the AMA 250cc Grand Prix Road Race "Expert" division National Championship, finishing first place in every race except one, where he took second.

Spencer's achievements did not go unnoticed. In 1980, at nineteen years of age, he signed with American Honda Motor Company to race in the AMA Superbike National Championship Series.

Spencer also began racing overseas that year. In his first taste of European competition, Spencer won the first two legs of the Trans-Atlantic Match Races. Incredibly, Spencer bested two former Grand Prix World Champions, Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene, both of whom were supported by factory teams.

Spencer qualified 6th in his first European Grand Prix. This was just a single spot behind reigning 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts, a man who, at the time, was considered the greatest motorcycle racer in the world.

In 1981, Spencer inked an agreement with Honda Racing Corporation to race selected Grand Prix World Championship events, and most importantly, to assist in the research and development of the Honda NR500 four-stroke machine.

The following year, at the age of 20, Spencer stunned the racing world at the Belgian Grand Prix on July 4, 1982, becoming the youngest Grand Prix race winner in history. He went on to finish third overall in his first full year of 500cc Grand Prix World Championship riding Honda's three-cylinder two-stroke NS500.

This set the stage for the celebrated 1983 racing season, which is considered by many as greatest World Championship Grand Prix contest of all time. Spencer won the 500cc World Championship in the toughest competition on record. He and Kenny Roberts split 12 wins and 12 pole positions between them, with Spencer taking the championship by scant 2 points in the final race of the season. At 21, Spencer had become the youngest World Grand Prix Champion in history.

1984 was a transition year for Spencer. He played a major role in the research and development of a new V-4 two-stroke Grand Prix machine for Honda, considered the most radically designed bike in post-war Grand Prix racing. Due to various teething problems, Spencer finished fourth in the World Championship point standings.

In 1985, Spencer was back with a vengeance. The young man who had taken the championship from King Kenny Roberts in 1983 was soon to become the first person in history to win both the 250cc and 500cc World Championships in the same season. In the 250cc classification, Spencer competed in ten events, qualified on the pole six times, and won seven races. In the eleven 500cc races, Spencer qualified first nine times and won seven.

The double championship stands alone in the history of modern Grand Prix racing. No competitor today would even attempt such a feat, yet Spencer accomplished it while setting nine new track records. Even more incredibly, in the same year, he won all three major divisions (250cc, 500cc and Superbike) at the AMA National at Daytona International Speedway. He is the first and only competitor ever to do so.

In 1988, with three World Championships under his belt, Spencer retired from Grand Prix racing. In the years that followed, he raced in selected events in the AMA Superbike Series. In 1996, over thirty years from the day a small boy entered his first dirt track race on an obscure Texas racecourse, Fast Freddie Spencer officially retired from professional motorcycle racing.

Today Spencer owns and operates the very successful Freddie Spencer's High Performance Riding School, situated at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Spencer's school, designed for riders of all abilities, reaches out to novice riders - who wish to improve their street riding -- as well as racers who dream of winning world championships. Spencer and a select group of highly skilled instructors - who are renowned for their personal touch - coach students using specially equipped Honda CBR600 motorcycles. For more information, go to: http://www.fastfreddie.com.


source:www.en.wikipedia.org
www.motorsports-network.com

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