Casey Stoner’s retirement announcement yesterday at Le Mans not only shook the MotoGP world, but it also opened a whole new scenario for the 2013 season, leaving Repsol and Honda in a very complicated situation of who they will replace the Australian champion with.
Before Stoner’s announcement, Valentino Rossi was at crossroads in his career unable to ride the Ducati to its full potential and with rumors that he would be retiring – he confirmed yesterday that he’ll continue for another two seasons – with Honda’s Shuhei Nakamoto slamming and locking the door on his eventual return just a few weeks ago, while Yamaha’s Lin Yarvis had left a slight opening with Jorge Lorenzo giving his approval.
Nakamoto was asked whether if Rossi has now a chance to return to Honda and he stated, “Now everything is possible, at the moment we have consider also this possibility.
” However, no one can count out that Repsol Honda will now put a bring even further pressure and probably some threats of a sponsor pullout (Repsol’s contract with Honda expires at the end of the season) on Dorna’s Carmelo Ezpeleta to change the existing rookie rule (he’s adamantly refused so far) so they can put Marc Marquez (he’s being groomed for the factory team) immediately in, instead of binding him to satellite teams Gresini or LCR for just one season.
We also can’t count out that Honda will now make a big play for Jorge Lorenzo, the only other ‘current alien’ besides Pedrosa and two Spaniards – even if Lorenzo is slightly less popular – could make Repsol very happy.
We can bet that last night Lorenzo started to think about a switch to Honda, and probably leaving Lin Yarvis looking over his books and wondering where to find the extra money – Yamaha still don’t have a title sponsor – to offer Lorenzo, with contract negotiations now going into full tilt mode (the Spaniard has repeatedly said that he wants to finish his career in Yamaha, but we’ve heard that same BS previously from Rossi and Stoner).
Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow will be sitting more or less patiently on the sidelines waiting for a decision that could give them a full factory ride if Lorenzo leaves, and if Yamaha doesn’t decide that even a lagging Rossi, but with with all his sponsor backing and popularity could actually do more good than harm in a rule evolving championship, that just got thoroughly criticized by a certain soon-to-retire Australian.
This shakeup thanks to Casey Stoner (who pushed Randy de Puniet’s name for a prototype ride), is going to be one hell of a silly season with a lot of rumors and speculation and with certain riders and their managers under very intense pressure, and whatever salary caps the top teams were even thinking about applying has gone straight out the window.
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