Alberto Puig, the team manager of Repsol Honda, has recently clarified some circulating rumors in the MotoGP paddock. Amidst the whirlwind of speculations regarding potential replacements for Marc Márquez, one name that frequently surfaced was Johann Zarco. However, Puig has firmly stated that Repsol Honda never made any contact with the French rider.

The departure of Marc Márquez from Honda has undoubtedly created a significant void in the team, leading to widespread speculation about his potential successor. Zarco, with his impressive track record and recent performances, seemed like a plausible candidate to many. Yet, Puig’s recent statements have put a halt to these rumors.

Speaking to Paddock-GP, Puig mentioned, “I don’t know where these stories come from. We have not approached Johann Zarco, nor have we had any discussions with him about a potential seat in our team.” He emphasized that while Zarco is undoubtedly a talented rider, the team has its strategies and plans for the future.

Puig also touched upon the broader topic of rider transfers and the challenges they pose. “In this sport, rumors spread quickly. It’s essential to focus on facts and not get swayed by speculations,” he added.

The Repsol Honda team is currently evaluating various options for the upcoming season. While the final decision remains under wraps, fans and experts alike are eagerly waiting to see who will take up the mantle after Márquez.

O conteúdo Alberto Puig contradicts Johann Zarco: “We never approached Johann Zarco” aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Prima Pramac won the MotoGP Australian GP with Johann Zarco and moved closer to clinching the team title, extending their lead in the championship.

With the French rider’s win and Jorge Martín’s fifth-place finish, Pramac scored 36 points at Phillip Island, bringing their total to 526. The team has now a gap of 85 points to Mooney VR46 Racing Team. However, anything can still happen since a maximum of 264 points can be awarded until the end of the season.

Ducati remains in third place as the top factory team, trailing the VR46 by 23 points and the leader by 108 points. The Red Bull KTM is in third place, with Aprilia in fourth, 50 and 63 points behind Ducati, respectively. GasGas Tech3 and Repsol Honda have not yet reached the 100-point mark, sitting in tenth and eleventh places.

Regarding the constructors’ championship, there are no major changes. Ducati, already crowned champions, now has a total of 552 points, compared to KTM’s 296. The Austrians have slightly widened their lead over Aprilia, which remains less than the value of a win in a main race. Yamaha has pulled away from Honda in the battle for fourth place, holding a four-point advantage.

Constructor and team championships:

O conteúdo Prima Pramac closes in on the team title once again aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Aleix Espargaró had a race to forget at the MotoGP Australian GP. He finished eighth, more than nine seconds behind the winner, to his great disappointment. However, he doesn’t place blame on the changed schedule.

Due to forecasts of bad weather on Sunday, the main race was rescheduled for Saturday, which meant that the riders didn’t have as many opportunities to prepare for it. There was no sprint race or warm-up before as usual.

Despite the difficulties on the Aprilia, Espargaró emphasized that there was plenty of preparation time, when asked if the schedule had an impact: ‘No, no, no excuses. We had plenty of time on Friday with very nice conditions, also the FP2. Nothing would change if we raced on Sunday’.

O conteúdo Aleix Espargaró rejects blaming the schedule change for the lack of competitiveness aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

In the MotoGP race in India last September, Francesco Bagnaia made a mistake and suffered a crash when he was in second place ahead of Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati). This allowed the Spanish rider to significantly close the gap to the championship lead held by the Ducati man. His crew chief, Cristian Gabarrini, believes it was a crucial incident.

The engineer told La Gazzetta dello Sport that if Bagnaia hadn’t crashed in India, the current situation would be much more encouraging for the reigning champion and not as much for Martín: ‘The crash in India weighed heavily on us; Pecco had caught him, overtaken him, and left him behind, and the other had exploded. Without the crash, we would be talking about something else; there would still be a significant advantage, and Martín would have a lower crest. This is the reality’.

Gabarrini clarified that he likes Martín’s attitude: ‘I like Martín, the way he is, always combative, aggressive, and positive. But it’s natural for him to push things in his favor and try to put pressure on Pecco’.

O conteúdo ‘Without Francesco Bagnaia’s crash in India, Jorge Martín would have a lower crest’ – Cristian Gabarrini aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

For the first time in his career, Marc Márquez will ride a motorcycle other than a Honda in MotoGP – he joins Gresini aboard a Ducati in 2024. After several years of dominance, the last few seasons have been challenging, not only for the Japanese manufacturer but also for the rider himself, with the performances and results way below the expectations.

In the team change he will make next year, Casey Stoner believes that #93 may finally see the reason behind all the troubless. The former rider told Crash.net:

– Honda have been struggling for a couple of years. It’s easy to sit on the outside and say «the team haven’t been doing a good job». But it’s not actually the team. It goes way further above than that. We’re not sure how much effort they’re putting into the racing. I know there were a few position changes in Japan and it seems to be affecting the team. The two Japanese manufacturers seem to be a step or two behind. […]. It’s puzzling that the Japanese manufacturers are equally behind the Europeans. Marc is going to give himself a shot to understand whether it’s him or the bike.

O conteúdo ‘Marc Márquez is going to give himself a shot to understand whether it’s him or the bike’ – Casey Stoner aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Marc Márquez was the face of Repsol Honda Team for several yesterday in MotoGP, giving the japanese manufacturer many world titles and being the one to lead the development of the RC213V. Alberto Puig assured that HRC policy was never to hold someone in against their will, at the same time he granted that there are ‘a lot of riders’ that want to ride with the team.

Honda’s Team Manager spoke to AS about the future ex-rider and said that there was never a wish to force the rider to stay, saying right away that the vacancy left open is something that many riders are interested in: ‘If a rider doesn’t want to race with our bikes or may be happier somewhere else, our philosophy is never to forcefully retain a rider just for the sake of it. We have a lot of riders who want to ride with us if they are happy and if everything is ok’.

Puig then said that the future of the development will continue and that Honda has big plans for the future, that now however won’t come in time to have the #93 as part of it: ‘We have some very interesting plans for the future. They are not in time in the case of Márquez’.

Honda is still looking for the future rider to take Márquez’s place and many names have been pointed, with Miguel Oliveira apparently as top contender, but with Maverick Viñales, Aleix Espargaró also on the table or even rider’s like Fabio Di Giannantonio or Jake Dixon, who were also said to be the a very specific shortlist.

Johann Zarco, who signed with LCR Honda is also said to be a possibility to move instead to the factory team, something Lucio Cecchinello certainly and publicly said he didn’t want.

O conteúdo Alberto Puig assures Honda doesn’t lack candidates for Márquez seat: ‘We have a lot of riders who want to ride with us’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Álex Rins competed in the MotoGP Indonesian GP and was in action in Australia on Friday, but the pain caused by loose screws in his injured leg led to his premature withdrawal. The Thai GP is already next weekend, and the rider is uncertain.

This also poses some troubles for LCR Honda. The team will have to find a substitute for Rins in the coming days when two of those who occasionally filled in for him are unavailable: Iker Lecuona has the World Superbike round in Jerez, and Stefan Bradl told the site SPEEDWEEK.com that he’s testing at the same circuit and can’t go to Buriram.

So, if Rins is absent, there may be an even less regular rider in the Thai round. Last season, Tetsuta Nagashima acted as a substitute for the injured Takaaki Nakagami in Buriram, in addition to being a wildcard in Japan.

O conteúdo Álex Rins may miss the Thai GP… and finding a replacement won’t be easy aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

When everything seemed to indicate that Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) could win the MotoGP Australian GP, it was his teammate Johann Zarco who secured the victory. In the battle, there was also Francesco Bagnaia, competing with a medium rear tire instead of the soft one that the Spanish rider unsuccessfully risked. Even so, he achieved the best result among those who made that choice.

In the Italian’s view, Martín was the only rider who stuck with the soft tire since the practice sessions, but he emphasized that race performance is different: ‘I think he was the only one with the possibility to race with the soft because yesterday he did many laps and he was quite fast. I think the maximum amount were 19 with stop and start. During all the race it’s always a different story and when I saw that the gap he took at the start wasn’t good enough to remain with a bit of margin in the last laps I was considering it’.

Focused on proper tire management, Bagnaia believes he adopted the right strategy and attributed merit to Zarco’s victory: ‘In a moment, during the race, I was just trying to be very careful with the rear tyre because I knew that was the correct choice and I knew that as I soon as Brad [Binder] and Fabio [Di Giannantonio] started to fight we would catch them easier, without pushing. So I think this was the correct choice, the correct strategy, and I just missed a bit to be close to Johann [Zarco] in the last lap. But he was in a better situation with the traction, he was working very well with the rear tyre, so he was deserving the victory more than me’.

O conteúdo ‘Jorge Martín was the only one with the possibility to race with the soft tyre’ – Francesco Bagnaia aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Before the sprint race was canceled, the warm-up for the MotoGP Australian GP took place in the rain, and Maverick Viñales was the fastest. The Aprilia rider had good sensations with his bike – so much so that he had something to figure out.

The Spanish rider explained that he had a level of traction in the rain that he didn’t have when it was dry at Phillip Island – something that didn’t happen for the first time in 2023:

– I was looking good, the other Aprilias not that much. But honestly I was with a really good feeling. It’s something we must understand, because on wet I found the traction I don’t have on dry. So we need to understand and we need to study because it’s important. In Japan, eventhough I crashed and I changed the bike, I was one the fastests on track without having the motivation to push. We need to understand, honestly I’m curiously to really go deep in the wet data because we have something we are missing on the dry. Honestly in the warm-up I felt really good.

O conteúdo ‘On wet I found the traction I don’t have on dry’ – Maverick Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

The 2007 Yamaha R6 was a very radical bike, built to win on the track, but which also ended up being a success on the road, despite all its aggressiveness in terms of ergonomics and engine behavior. The one we have here is in excellent condition.

Produced (and registered) between 1999 and 2020, the Yamaha R6 was a model that immediately set itself apart from what had previously been produced in the 600 cc class. Instead of producing yet another sport-touring model, ideal for a 50-50 split between road and circuit, the Japanese brand chose to create a much more radical model to win on the track. Several evolutions were launched, and the 2003 generation received fuel injection, in a model that was still relatively easy to drive and comfortable, but already very fast on the track.

It was then in 2006 that the R6 underwent a radical change, with much more angular lines, much more aggressive ergonomics and more track-ready cycling, as well as an engine with a much greater appetite for high revs. There was even some controversy over the overly generous revs on the tachometer, which Yamaha later admitted was a mistake…

2007 MODEL

Despite having 2008 license plates, the bike in this article is from the 2007 generation, so it already had the YCC-T (Yamaha Chip Controlled Throttle) throttle system, but still didn’t have the YCC-I (Yamaha Chip Controlled Intake) which varied the length of the intake tunnels. Regardless, this was the basis on which the R6 won countless Supersport titles around the world (and several world championships). A bike with a smooth engine, like any in-line four-cylinder, but one that needed to be ridden aggressively and excellently on the track, so that the rider could take advantage of the punchy engine and high-quality cycling.

THE TESTED MOTORCYCLE

Nowadays it’s no longer possible to buy a new Yamaha R6 with a license plate (you can do it for closed-circuit use and even use the GYTR competition kit), so a well-maintained Yamaha R6 may well have added value these days. And while we still come across some in everyday life or on weekend rides, the truth is that many have spent the years doing what they’re most comfortable doing, on the track, so – even if well maintained – it’s not always easy to find an R6 with a 100% healthy “heart”.

This bike looks to be in excellent condition! It has 31,000 km on the clock, recently arrived from Madeira Island and doesn’t appear to have suffered from any abuse throughout its life. It comes pretty much as standard, with the exception of the darkened headlights, the protective “mushrooms”, the Michelin Power 5, the different tuners on the top of the fork and the fitting of a BMC air filter and iridium spark plugs.

With an excellent exterior, it’s amazing how light this bike is to handle. It feels like a 300 cc sports bike! Then, on the road, we were reminded of how aggressive this bike is for the body, with a very radical position through a very high seat and footpegs and low stanchions, which put weight on the wrists. The sound of the exhaust is loud but super appealing, and you don’t even have to push the gears very hard to hear it “scream”, although you do need to rev it above 8,000 / 10,000 rpm for this engine to show its worth! Of course, you can drive quietly on the highway below these speeds, but on the track forget it, you have to squeeze the 4-cylinder above the 5-digit mark on the tachometer!

If the engine feels like new, the braking needs a little more force than a current sports car, but it still delivers without a glitch, and as for the suspensions, they were also faultless, with an excellent reading of the asphalt, whether at a leisurely pace or a faster one. With a good feel for all the components – only the final drive showed signs of needing to be changed – this R6 is more than approved and still ready for many good rides on the road or on the track, before being well stored in a garage or living room (and later in a museum)!

Maintaining and preserving

Our reader Tiago Ramos (RS) kindly provided his Yamaha R6 for our test, but more than that, he came all the way from Peniche to the Estoril Autodrome, on purpose, on one of those very cold mornings in this aggressive winter.

Having had the bike for about a year, but very experienced and a fan of the tuning fork brand, Tiago reveals that “it was a deal that came up and I didn’t want to let it go. I think it’s a mythical bike and I was curious to ride it, so I did.” So far, due to lack of time, he’s only done a few road rides, but “in the future I’d still like to do some track days, but this will always be a bike just for a few laps.” “I’d like to keep it in the garage, although there are offers for me to sell it. And then eventually buy something more practical, like a Tracer 7 or 9 for example. But I’m in no hurry to sell it, as it’s a bike that won’t exist any more.” Thank you very much Tiago and keep on riding, if possible with this beautiful R6!

O conteúdo Review – used of the month – Yamaha YZF-R6 – for racing… with a license plate aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.