MotoGP

The Aprilia rider had broken the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya lap record during third practice on Saturday morning, only to go even faster during qualifying with a 1m38.742s to take pole position by 0.031s from Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia. The home hero, who won from pole position earlier this year in Argentina, had hoped a slower lap

The Ducati rider missed out on pole position to Espargaro by 0.031s, but already anticipates the Barcelona race to be a different challenge due to the hot and slippery track conditions in the high temperatures, which will make tyre conservation over the race distance the key test. Aprilia’s Espargaro demonstrated eye-catching race pace in practice,

The Aprilia rider produced a new lap record of Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona earlier in the day in third free practice, and duly repeated the feat with a 1m38.742s with his penultimate lap in qualifying. But the home hero was made to sweat over top spot with Ducati’s Bagnaia on a charge with his final flying

The Barcelona circuit was predicted by Quartararo to be a tricky track for the Yamaha given the track’s long pitstraight and the bike’s lack of power. The Catalan GP venue is also notoriously low grip, conditions the Yamaha typically struggles in, with Quartararo only eighth fastest and around seven tenths off the pace after a

Aleix Espargaro dominated Friday practice at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, topping the combined timesheets by 0.303s from Aprilia team-mate Maverick Vinales. Espargaro is on a purple patch in 2022, coming to his home race off the back of four-straight podium finishes to add to his Argentina victory. The low-grip nature of the Barcelona track is

VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi set the early pace on his GP21, jumping up to fifth on the combined order before improving to third with a 1m40.577s – which put the Italian rookie third overall. It wouldn’t until halfway through the 45-minute afternoon session at Barcelona when Alex Rins’ best effort from FP1 was toppled

The current championship leader confirmed his decision to stay with Yamaha on the eve of this weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix, with the deal having been confirmed “a few weeks ago.” Although he said on Thursday he had been tempted to move to a different manufacturer, the Frenchman explained that he was “super happy” with the

The decision taken by the Tokyo manufacturer comes as Espargaro’s future with the team has been in doubt. The new parts taken to Mugello last week were a swingarm and a chassis, with one of each fitted to Marquez’s RC213V. After it was announced that the six-time world champion was to undergo surgery and be

Quartararo made his MotoGP debut in 2019 with Yamaha satellite squad Petronas SRT, scoring seven podiums in his rookie campaign before scoring three wins in 2020. He was promoted to the factory Yamaha squad for 2021 to replace Valentino Rossi and duly went on to win five races and the world championship – Yamaha’s first

Razgatlioglu had been linked to a move to the MotoGP paddock for some time as part of his relationship with Yamaha, with speculation of a 2023 move intensifying after his WSBK title success last year. The Turkish rider even has a test aboard the marque’s M1 grand prix machine lined up for next month, both

Badly breaking his right arm in a crash at Jerez in 2020, Marquez has struggled ever since his return to racing in April of 2021 and will go to America this week to have a fourth major operation on his right humerus. It is hoped it will finally allow Marquez to return to his former

Having started fifth on the grid, Bagnaia dropped to ninth on the opening lap, but rebounded to take the lead on the ninth tour and pull away by over a second to score his second win of the 2022 campaign. Shock poleman Fabio Di Giannantonio took the holeshot on his year-old Gresini Ducati from VR46

The 2020 teams’ world champions and riders’ world champions with Mir have endured a torrid season since Suzuki made its decision to quit MotoGP at the end of 2022 following the Spanish Grand Prix.   At the French GP, both riders crashed out of strong positions, while last weekend at Mugello Alex Rins was taken

Quartararo qualified sixth but was expected to struggle in the race on his underpowered Yamaha having been flanked by five Ducatis. But the Yamaha rider made decisive moves before the main straight to overtake the early-leading VR46 Ducatis of Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi, and poleman Fabio Di Giannantonio on his Gresini Ducati and utilise

Rins and Nakagami were battling over 12th spot in the early stages of Sunday’s race at Mugello after a poor qualifying left the Suzuki rider down in 21st on the grid. Attempting to pass the LCR rider on the inside of the Turn 11 left-hander on lap seven of 23, the pair came together and

Espargaro started Sunday’s 23-lap Mugello race from seventh and would go on to register his fourth-straight podium in third. But his hopes of fighting for victory on Aprilia’s home soil were scuppered by difficulties in passing VR46 Ducati riders Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini – with Espargaro showering praise on the duo who started on

Bagnaia has tallied up two DNFs in 2022 so far after crashing out of the Qatar GP in March and at the French GP two weeks ago while fighting for victory with Gresini’s Enea Bastianini.   This left him 46 points adrift in the championship standings coming to his home round at Mugello this weekend,

The six-time MotoGP world champion announced on Saturday at Mugello that he will sit out racing for the foreseeable future – possibly for the rest of 2022 – to have a fourth operation in America on the right arm he badly broke in 2020. Marquez had confirmation of the surgery on Friday between practice sessions

On Saturday after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, Honda announced that Marquez would be travelling to Rochester, Minnesota to have a fourth operation on the right arm he badly broke back in 2020. Marquez has suffered with the arm ever since he returned to action last April, with his problems only heightened by a

The Italian has had a largely under-the-radar start to his MotoGP career on his 2021-spec Gresini Ducati, taking a best of 13th last time out at Le Mans, while 11th in Indonesia was his best qualifying performance. Di Giannantonio used the iffy conditions in Q1 at Mugello to top the session and progress to Q2,

Qualifying was run under spots of rain as thunder rumbled around the Mugello circuit on Saturday afternoon, with Q1 initially beginning on wet tyres before a switch to slicks despite marshals still waving rain flags. The Q2 pole shootout session was ultimately completed on slick tyres, with Gresini rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio using his knowledge

Rossi retired from MotoGP at the end of the 2021 season having first competed in the grand prix world championship in 1996.  OPINION: The MotoGP tribute that does a disservice to a legend In a career spanning 26 seasons, Rossi won nine world titles across the 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP classes – seven of which coming

On Friday at the Italian Grand Prix, Aprilia announced it had reached a deal with RNF for it to become the Italian manufacturers’ satellite squad from 2023 on an initial two-year deal. RNF currently fields Dovizioso and Darryn Binder on Yamaha machinery, but neither is contracted beyond the end of 2022. Dovizioso has endured a

Celebrating his new two-year deal with Aprilia, which was announced on Thursday, Espargaro guided his RS-GP – which in FP2 was powered by a new engine – to top spot with a 1m45.891s. He was shadowed by the factory Ducati of Francesco Bagnaia on a 1m45.940s, who led an onslaught of Ducatis consisting of team-mate

MotoGP will lose a manufacturer at the end of the 2022 season after Suzuki made the shock announcement it would be quitting the series. In the day after Autosport first broke the story, MotoGP owners Dorna Sports issued a statement saying it had high levels of interest from independent teams and factories about coming to

The eighth round of the 2022 season sees MotoGP head to Italy for the first of two races in the country this year, with the series returning in September to Misano. It also marks the first race at Mugello to be held with a full attendance allowed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reigning

The satellite Ducati squad in recent years has traditionally run a special one-off livery at Mugello to mark its collaboration with Italian supercar company Lamborghini. While Pramac will continue its trend of special Mugello liveries this weekend, it will not run the black and yellow Lamborghini colours. Instead, to mark the arrival of new sponsor

The Italian manufacturer will hold a press conference at Mugello on Thursday at 1:30pm local time on the eve of the Italian Grand Prix to confirm the news. Aprilia and Espargaro have been locked in talks for some time over a renewal, with the Spaniard admitting following his historic maiden win at the Argentina Grand

As Russia has continued its assault on Ukraine, this has created multiple breaks in global supply chains as sanctions upon Russia continue to escalate. The neighbouring nation of Finland has thus declared its intention to join NATO, which has not been received well within Russia. Motorcycle racing’s governing body, the FIM, has hence stated that

Fabio Quartararo leads the 2022 world championship by four points after the first seven races having taken a victory in Portugal, and second-place finishes in Indonesia and Spain against a backdrop of large inconsistency from the rest of the field.   But his results have far outweighed those of his fellow Yamaha riders, with the