Last race of the season on Sunday

[badgerKDD]

So even though the Moto GP championship is done and dusted there's still the 125 championship and the Moto2 to be decided. Before the sad drama of Simmo the lower capacities were right to the wire, so expect some hard racing this weekend.

Suzuki were supposed to be announcing their decision for next year at Sepang, but so far nothing has been said or released. I follow Paul Denning on Twitter and he's not tweeted anything, and nothing has been reported on any of the motorsport websites I regularly check on. Really hope they stay in the championship but I'm not sure they'll do themselves any favours by running the 800 in next years series. Fingers crossed for a Bautista, Hopper two man team.

[Scotty]

I've often wondered what Suzuki are getting out of participating in MotoGP, unless they have a more long-term cunning plan... If I recall correctly they pulled factory support from the Alstare team in WSB last year, though Crescent are now making noises about going to WSB themselves so it'll be interesting to see what level of support, if any, they get from the factory.
As the Gixxer thou design is getting a little long in the tooth, maybe they have been developing a MotoGP-derived GSV-R thou as the next step, but if that's the case it's been one of the best-ever kept secrets. It would make a bit of sense for some technology transfer down from racing - it was fairly well received when Yamaha did it with the latest R1 and I'm sure that Honda and Ducati have used some of the stuff that they've learned from GP racing. One of the problems for a road-going GSV-R would be the V4 engine - they are complex and expensive to manufacture, complex and fiddly to work on and service, and with the shrinking market for litre superbikes it doesn't look like a good time to invest millions in an entirely new bike, no matter how much hysteria it would generate in MCN (though only a fraction of the noise they'd make if Rossi rode for Suzuki).
It's taken them a lot of hard work to get the GP bike anything like competitive this season, and it would be nice if they could get it on the podium at Valencia, but can you see it finishing ahead of Stoner, Lorenzo, Pedrosa, Spies and Dovisioso? I'm sure that Rossi will be glad to see the back of this season, more than ever since the loss of SuperSic, but it'll have been way harder than he could have imagined this time last year, and he won't be sorry not to have to ride the GP11.2.3.6.7 any more. Let's just hope that next year's bike is a bit better...

[badgerKDD]

Tbh, it seems that Hayden is fairing better on the Ducati than Rossi, he's regularly running up in the top 7 or 8 at least while the tyres last. Is it because he's prepared to run it right on the edge of control like Stoner was?

I really can't wait to see what the new 1000cc era brings , maybe the superbike guys will come to the fore and take the fight to the aliens, as they will understand the power better, but i suppose it all depends on whether they can handle the chassis it comes in. And will Rossi get back into his comfort zone? Either way, it should be an interesting winter, watching the testing dramas unfold .

[Funky]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Suzuki competing more in the production engine class of moto gp which would make more long term sense for development and with a factory willing to back up the engines they would probably have more race teams purchasing engines.

That is unless Honda have done their normal thing of wrapping the rules around their own marketing machine for the initial season.

[badgerKDD]

Yes the beast that is Honda Racing does seem to have rather a tight strangle hold on Dorna, but that is also one reason for bringing in the CRT teams, supposedly it will take the power away from the factory teams as more privateers means more bikes on the grid and if a factory team threatens to pull out then there will still be a good grid size compared to how it is now, Honda fielding the most bikes.

[Mervin]

Yay Danny Webb on pole for the last ever125 race

[falcon]

I'm gonna be up watching the tribute to Marco at 9 tomorrow with Schwantz riding his bike, tissues at the ready.....

[richiec]

I'm gonna be up watching the tribute to Marco at 9 tomorrow with Schwantz riding his bike, tissues at the ready.....

Bloody hell you're not wrong - that was very moving ! Me and the missus were trying not to look at each other - then Eurosport had to screen the short clip of Marco signing the screen and saying Ciao ....................

[Scotty]

Oh well, all over for another season, and considering that the main championships were pretty much all over bar the shouting, there was some pretty decent racing going on.

Top lad, Maverick Viñales in 125s, yet another stellar graduate of the Spanish production line. Personally I've never seen the point of Paris Hilton, but if she's prepared to put money into a GP racing team, then good for her, and it was good to see her on the podium collecting the manufacturer's award on behalf of the team - who knows, her photo up there may even make it to the pages of the vacuous celeb mags, though I dare say that the readership of such trash aren't aware of a Spain beyond bloody Benidorm...

A fitting win for Michele Pirro in Moto2 as well, and Fausto Gresini crying his eyes out on the pit wall was touching to see. A fitting tribute and send-off for SuperSic indeed. Shame that there were so many crashes, including both the Brits, but aside from Takahashi getting a beating in his highside I don't think anyone was too badly hurt.

Andrea Dovisioso is one rider to whom I've never been able to warm. Very much the forgotten rider on the Repsol Honda roster, though it must be said, pretty handy, picking up regular podiums and getting third overall, but never challenging for the top step really, aside from a somewhat fortuitous win at Donington two years ago. Dovi was a vocal critic of Simoncelli's robust riding earlier this year, not waiting for an invitation to wade in with his two penn'orth following the incident with Pedrosa at Le Mans. Had it been SuperSic wandering across his bows and clipping his front wheel, causing a four bike pile-up at the first corner I'm sure he'd have been making a right song and dance about it, but now the boot is metaphorically on the other foot I don't hear anyone making a fuss about his actions this afternoon... Shame that it removed a quarter of the field in one hit, all of whom qualified ahead of Dovi. It was good to see Loris finish, shame that he didn't take the fight to Crutchlow and Abraham when he was catching them up, but with nothing at stake and in his final race, riding with Marco's #58 and with conditions pretty dodgy he took the wise choice of just bringing it home. You have to feel for Ben Spies, catching and passing Stoner and holding him off admirably, to be beaten by 0.015s in a drag to the line must be gutting. I think it was significant that Spies went wide out of the final corner, crossing the painted stripes at either side of the pit-lane entrance, and with the throttle on the stop the bike would have been trying its hardest to spin-up going over the paint, traction control working overtime to stop it doing so. Stoner, on the other hand, stayed tighter and kept it on the tarmac, getting full uninterrupted drive to the line and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Congratulations to all the worthy champions of 2011, let's hope for a tragedy-free season next year, it's about time we had one.

[badgerKDD]

Could'nt have said it better!

Congratulations to Crutchlow on Rookie of the Year and being 'highest placed race finish' Brit of the 800 era.

Suzuki are still yet to confirm anything but they are testing with Bautista on Tuesday, but so far its using the 800. No word on Hopper's postion but am keeping tabs on his Twitter.