Quite probably, reckons Mike Scott, the GP paddock pitbullControl tyres for MotoGP? “Only a proposal,” smiles Dorna chief Carmelo Ezpeleta reassuringly, but everyone is sure this Draconian move is already a done deal with the blessing of Bernie

The best proverbs work both ways. For every silver lining, there’s always a cloud. It’s always dawn just after it’s darkest.Here’s one I think I made up. Every age has its Titan. Or … every Titan shows his age.The question left in the air at the end of last year was simply this: ...

bikes? They win all the races, after all. Like Jeremy McWilliams. He has a factory Aprilia in the 250 class, and he won the Dutch TT. Goes without saying, doesn't it? And certainly without passports. Look at McWilliams' date of birth - April 4, 1964. It

petty: Dorna wants to punish Aprilia for having complete control of the class. It seems the Spaniards don’t mind making money out of grand prix racing themselves, but they don’t want anybody else to.Dorna points at lease costs for a top Aprilia not far

Supersports in turn feeding riders to them.But not according to several people who should know. Like Aprilia's director of racing and IRTA chief Jan Witteveen, and Dorna's Race Director, Paul Butler. Not to mention Kevin Schwantz, and countless others

solution, oddly, is to follow the Aprilia route to higher revs and pneumatic valves, more with 800s in mind than its current clunker. Only time will tell if this will prove a masterstroke. Or that Aprilia's failed example was there as a warning.Mika mistake

Hardship awaits those who challenge the Japanese motorcycle industry's might in MotoGP. While KTM, Aprilia, Derbi and Gilera may flourish in the little classes, even bold Ducati struggles in the big one. Aprilia gave up and left. Pity the smaller fish

develop, the more similar they become. The 500 era showed that, with V4 two-strokes all round. They were the URM - Universal Racing Motorcycle. MotoGP four-strokes arrived with a refreshing mechanical diversity. Aprilia had an inline three, Yamaha

This was history. And just in case nobody had noticed, the shout from new-generation GP bikes - the complex throb of the Honda, the rude-boy bluster of the Suzuki, the howl of the Yamaha and the smooth, shrill Aprilia - underlined the fact. Listen

earlier in the year, I mused that in spite of his struggles to get into the points on a five-year-old Aprilia with last year's engine, he'd be better off staying in the 250 class than switching to WSB. A Superbike may be a big four-stroke with some