2025 Silly Season

MichaelBolton said:

In other news, strong rumors of Maverick having said no to Aprilia, presumably to sign as a Honda rider for a fortune. Boneheaded move IMO (for both Mav and Honda), although there's a possibility Aprilia is lowballing him now that they've got Martín. I imagine they'll go after one of Bezzecchi or DiGia.

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synn said:

I don’t know who Honda is using, probably they don’t either, because they seem completely lost.

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mikesbytes said:

Talk about Iannone getting a MotoGP ride however I don't think its backed by any substance. The problem is likely to be his age at 34. I could see him being a substitute rider for someone who is injured.

Andrea Iannone backed to make astonishing MotoGP comeback

"First of all, it’s important to decide whether I remain in WorldSBK or not.”

www.crash.net

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mylexicon said:

MV Agusta Slated to Return to MotoGP in 2027

Tricky to interpret. The team will merely be a KTM-rebadge, but the issue is whether MV will use the existing Tech 3 entries, or whether the MV badge is enough to convince Dorna to release Suzuki's old grid slots to the new MV team.

If MV are taking those spots, it could thwart BMW's entry into MotoGP. Perhaps that's the appearance KTM want to create to force the Bavarians to provide a "yea" or "nay" vote (assuming Dorna is giving BMW first dibs on the 2 reserve grid slots).

I don't think a KTM rebadge raises MV profile, but consumers may have a different opinion. Happy speculating.

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mylexicon said:

MV Agusta Slated to Return to MotoGP in 2027

Tricky to interpret. The team will merely be a KTM-rebadge, but the issue is whether MV will use the existing Tech 3 entries, or whether the MV badge is enough to convince Dorna to release Suzuki's old grid slots to the new MV team.

If MV are taking those spots, it could thwart BMW's entry into MotoGP. Perhaps that's the appearance KTM want to create to force the Bavarians to provide a "yea" or "nay" vote (assuming Dorna is giving BMW first dibs on the 2 reserve grid slots).

I don't think a KTM rebadge raises MV profile, but consumers may have a different opinion. Happy speculating.

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michaelm said:

He was undoubtedly a fast rider, and won on a Ducati before Dovi did. His whole suspension probably had more to do with general international athletics regulations/WADA than GP bike racing, I seriously doubt he did anything to give him an advantage in bike racing.

Other than Honda I don’t see what he would have to offer other marques, he is not a renowned developer afaik, the other marques already have much younger fast riders signed, and there seems to be a fair amount of talent in the pipeline in the junior classes. I guess Pramac and VR 46 have not finalised their rider line ups for next year though, or even their situation in the case of Pramac. (EDIT Read the article now. I suspect they are speculating similarly to what I just did. If he hasn’t re-signed for WSBK yet I guess he may see a chance in the offing, but he wasn’t dubbed Crazy Joe because of his good decision making).

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Hollywood said:

some of the articles I read over the last couple days suggested that the MV Agusta team will be running KTM engines in their own bike, and essentially become a new team.

As far as BMW is concerned, I dont think it matters, they have too much money behind them to say no to.

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synn said:

Even if it’s a rebadging exercise, MV is a much better fit than GasGas, who don’t even make large capacity motorcycles.

My hope is that while the MV entry might reuse the KTM engine (the most expensive component), they will have their own chassis and aero concepts.

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Sennas_Caress said:

I do believe that a separate MV Augusta team in Moto GP will raise its profile, even if the engine is made by KTM.

The MV Augusta engine in the roadbikes will also be developed in tandem with KTM as both are part of the PMG.

Dorna has been very explicit in their desire to reign in the number of Ducati bikes. They are not fans of engines being made for more than two teams.
At the moment, the number of customer teams are out of their hands. The PMG dilemma is that they must enter a new team for them to be able to have three teams, while Ducati merely took over one Aprilia supplied team, and one Yamaha. Both were already present in the championship.

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mylexicon said:

Participating in MotoGP will raise awareness about the brand, but KTM are not committed to changing MV's DNA so to speak.

Ducati decided to include 90-degree V4 engines, and it's taken them 20 years and hundreds of millions (?) of euros to associate themselves with V4 engines. MV is tethered to inline-3 engines in grand prix, and inline-3 and inline-4 engines in Superbike. If KTM are hoping to put a V4 in an MV Agusta grand prix chassis, and then make Dorna/sponsors pay for the brand realignment, I don't see it working. If KTM plan to run an inline-4 in grand prix, maybe they can bill Dorna and sponsors to add a firing order to MV identity. You could argue that Yamaha did that (sort of) with Rossi.

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Sennas_Caress said:

I do believe that a separate MV Augusta team in Moto GP will raise its profile, even if the engine is made by KTM.

The MV Augusta engine in the roadbikes will also be developed in tandem with KTM as both are part of the PMG.

Dorna has been very explicit in their desire to reign in the number of Ducati bikes. They are not fans of engines being made for more than two teams.
At the moment, the number of customer teams are out of their hands. The PMG dilemma is that they must enter a new team for them to be able to have three teams, while Ducati merely took over one Aprilia supplied team, and one Yamaha. Both were already present in the championship.

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Sennas_Caress said:

I do believe that a separate MV Augusta team in Moto GP will raise its profile, even if the engine is made by KTM.

The MV Augusta engine in the roadbikes will also be developed in tandem with KTM as both are part of the PMG.

Dorna has been very explicit in their desire to reign in the number of Ducati bikes. They are not fans of engines being made for more than two teams.
At the moment, the number of customer teams are out of their hands. The PMG dilemma is that they must enter a new team for them to be able to have three teams, while Ducati merely took over one Aprilia supplied team, and one Yamaha. Both were already present in the championship.

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michaelm said:

I can’t see how such an exercise would be other than for brand recognition of MV Augusta. It goes against what they have been saying which is that they want another satellite KTM team to help develop the bike a la Ducati, which wouldn’t fly with a different chassis.

As I recall they reserved a place for a VR 46 team, a fairly big time allowance now given at least 2 manufacturers would really like to have another satellite team. I guess the assumption I was that VR46 would be a Yamaha team, indeed this seemed to be a major reason Tech 3 decamped to KTM, but they have run Ducatis,

I tend to agree there should not be too many more bikes in the field, but Ducati have got their advantage by being prepared to supply competitive bikes, other manufacturers particularly Honda have supplied multiple teams before but often given them second or third tier bikes.

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synn said:

The grid size is limited to 24 bikes, with two reserved for a new manufacturer.

If another manufacturer wants to join after that, they will need to buy the grid slots from an existing team. In the case of MV, that’s most likely the Tech3 slots/ takeover of the team.

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