More a business than a sport, MotoGP had a grim festive season and a bleak start to the new year. Along with the rest of the commercial world.The news that Honda was to pull out of F1 sent shivers down the spine, now Kawasaki’s stealthy withdrawal

There is the smell of murder in MotoGP. And it’s getting worse.For 250s, it is slow murder, by poison, with accomplices, and not yet fully accomplished. But the final chapter is already written: the stroker princelings will be replaced by 600

anyway, with warmer weather, to race for real.Some riders, and Stoner is one, welcome the cut in testing. He sees little point in going round and round and round. If you can’t work it out in a lap or two, you shouldn’t be doing the job, in his opinion

The December-January testing ban means just one thing to the dedicated MotoGP hero: withdrawal symptoms. It’s a rare racer who can kick back. Most of them will have spent the winter worrying desperately.They might be considering those old racing

control allows rain to be introduced at the ringmaster’s discretion, just in case any dry race threatens to get too dull.In the end, we will have to rely on riding talent. MotoGP is especially blessed at the moment, with Rossi and Stoner, Lorenzo

that keeps getting kicked. By his own team-mate.He’s been beaten by Stoner before, and beaten him back. But getting beaten by Lorenzo is a different twist. Your team-mate has the same kit as you, same tyres too these days. If he finishes in front, there

, after apparently losing the jewel-in-the-crown car race (and we shall see how that ends up), Silversnot has snatched back MotoGP.The more things change … Great idea from Dorna, to introduce a second economy-class level into MotoGP, whereby non