Photo: motogp
February ended and so did the time Grand Prix teams had to make their final decisions on the 2014 championship. Ducati’s choice was doubtlessly the most expected one in the paddock, with the bikes obviously not being on par with Yamaha and Honda in the Factory trim. Helped by the positive feedback from contracted riders, Gigi Dall’Igna finally made a decisive move for Ducati in the Open category.
With Ioda Racing retaining only Danilo Petrucci, the 2014 MotoGP final grid sees 23 riders, with a total of 8 Factory entries. We’ve got Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez as the top Honda riders, and Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista for the satellite LCR and GO&FUN Gresini teams, respectively.
Then Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi on the main Yamaha Factory Racing machines, with Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro from the satellite Yamaha Tech3 team, and that’s about it. The 2014 MotoGP championship has become a 2-factory affair, with the rest of the entries being able to load 24 liters of fuel and having 12 engines per season at their disposal, as opposed to 20 liters and only 5 engines for Honda and Yamaha.
Still the Factory entries get to develop their own software for the Magneti Marelli ECU, whereas the Open bikes have to rely on the Marelli code, and learn how to tweak it to their advantage. Anyway, we expect that the 2014 GP will be a terribly exciting one as we saw some of the new Open bikes performing exceptionally well and keeping really close with the top boys. And it things are going to unfold in the championship as we saw them develop in the two Sepang tests, then we’re definitely in for quite an impressive show from Aleix Espargaro and his FTR-Yamaha NGM bike.
The 2014 season is even more important as many contracts are reaching their end, and we might see interesting changes for the 2015 grid. Pedrosa, Rossi, Lorenzo and Marquez will have to re-set their deals, though we believe Honda has no reason to drop the reigning champion. Oh, and 2015 sees Suzuki back on the grid, too…
Please find the attached PDF containing all the final entries for all three GP classes.
Then Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi on the main Yamaha Factory Racing machines, with Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro from the satellite Yamaha Tech3 team, and that’s about it. The 2014 MotoGP championship has become a 2-factory affair, with the rest of the entries being able to load 24 liters of fuel and having 12 engines per season at their disposal, as opposed to 20 liters and only 5 engines for Honda and Yamaha.
Still the Factory entries get to develop their own software for the Magneti Marelli ECU, whereas the Open bikes have to rely on the Marelli code, and learn how to tweak it to their advantage. Anyway, we expect that the 2014 GP will be a terribly exciting one as we saw some of the new Open bikes performing exceptionally well and keeping really close with the top boys. And it things are going to unfold in the championship as we saw them develop in the two Sepang tests, then we’re definitely in for quite an impressive show from Aleix Espargaro and his FTR-Yamaha NGM bike.
The 2014 season is even more important as many contracts are reaching their end, and we might see interesting changes for the 2015 grid. Pedrosa, Rossi, Lorenzo and Marquez will have to re-set their deals, though we believe Honda has no reason to drop the reigning champion. Oh, and 2015 sees Suzuki back on the grid, too…
Please find the attached PDF containing all the final entries for all three GP classes.
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