Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

The one place that everyone wants to be at a MotoGP race is in the paddock. Simultaneously, it is one of the most difficult places to get into, as, quite simply, Dorna does not sell passes into the paddock. The usual way - other than in a professional capacity, or working as a marshal - is to purchase a VIP package through one of the very few specialist travel companies authorized to issue paddock passes, such as our friends over at Pole Position Travel.

But now, MotoGP's (and MotoMatters.com's) official charity organization Riders For Health are providing an extra route into the paddock. Today, the charity announced that they will be auctioning off pairs of paddock passes for each of MotoGP's 18 races this season, with the money raised going towards Riders' outstanding work providing primary health care in Africa. If you want to get into the paddock and have a chance of meeting your own personal hero (be it Valentino Rossi, Bradley Smith or even Jerry Burgess), then read the press release below carefully, and dig deep for Riders.

Exclusive MotoGP paddock pass auction for Riders

The gods have not looked kindly on the advent of the Moto2 class. Nearly every time the new bikes have taken to the track for testing, the elements have intervened, throwing wind, rain and even snow into the paths of the CBR600-engined prototypes. The final day of testing at Barcelona was no different, the day starting wet and the track only drying out some time after 2pm, leaving precious little time for the riders to work further on developing and setting up their brand new Moto2 machines.

Despite the conditions and the lack of track time, the majority of riders still at the circuit did manage to improve their times. Once again, it was Shoya Tomizawa who was fastest, sharing the honor on Friday with Julian Simon and Yuki Takahashi. In the unofficial standings, Jules Cluzel was awarded the 4th fastest time, ahead of Ant West on the MZ.

But twelve riders finished the test within a second of each other, though being unofficial and self-reported, the lap times need to be treated with an artery-clogging helping of salt. A potential lead group seems to be appearing, but given the well-reported difference in engine tune being used, it is hard to judge just how much difference in time is being disguised by superior engines.

The second day of testing for the Moto2 class at Barcelona took place under far better conditions than the first. The day started off relatively sunny and dry, but damp patches and a cool track made for a treacherous track, which caught many riders out. The main victims were Roberto Rolfo and Alex Debon, two of the men tipped for success in the class, who both suffered serious shoulder injuries. Rolfo dislocated his shoulder and will be out for four weeks, while Debon fractured a collarbone and is likely to be out for a similar period. The Spaniard was taken to Valencia in the afternoon to undergo surgery to set the collarbone. Rolfo's injury came at a time when the Italian was doing well. He had just set the second time of the day behind American Kenny Noyes when he went down on a damp part of the track. In addition to Rolfo and Debon, the list of fallers included Thomas Luthi, Fonsi Nieto, Raffaele de Rosa and Julian Simon, though these riders came away relatively unscathed.

At the end of the day, it was the Japanese rider Shoya Tomizawa who reported the fastest time on a Suter MMX, ahead of Frenchman Jules Cluzel, also on a Suter, with the Colombian Yonni Hernandez in 3rd aboard a Blusens BQR. But while the teams are still using a mixture of engines - with a power difference of over 15 horsepower in some cases - the times need to be taken with a very large helping of salt, especially as these times have been released by the teams, rather than recorded by the official timekeeping.

If the old aphorism that no news is good news holds true, then the news from the first day of testing at Barcelona simply couldn't be better. Rain all morning, followed by grey skies and more drizzle kept almost everyone stuck in the pits. Towards the end of the day, as the conditions improved a little, several riders tested the water, of whom Roberto Rolfo completed the most laps - 35 in total - to get a feel for his Italtrans STR Suter Moto2 bike. His teammate Robertino Pietri - son of the former AMA racer Roberto Pietri - went out with the same objective, but was forced back into the pits after just a couple of laps, after suffering an engine problem with the Supersport-spec CBR600 unit which the Italtrans team are using while waiting for the official spec unit to arrive.

The agenda for Wednesday's meeting of the Grand Prix Commission  - MotoGP's rule-making body - was clear: To thrash out some of the difficulties arising from their previous decision to revert MotoGP to 1000cc. Their hope was that after this meeting, the main points of the rules would be clear to everyone involved, and manufacturers and privateers could go off and start working on the machines which they will contest the 2012 MotoGP championship with.

Sure enough, after the meeting, the FIM issued a press release containing the new regulations agreed by the GP Commission, and it should come as no surprise that a host of details remain to be sorted out. The changes noted in the press release do point to some fascinating developments. Here are the main points for the 2012 regulations, which we will go into in more detail below:

Technical Specifications for 2012 for the MotoGP class

After several long, dark months of near silence on racetracks around the world, motorcycle racing fans can ready themselves for a feast of on-track action. For 10 of the next 14 days will see every international race class on track testing, with the bonus of the opening round of the World Superbike championship to top it off. 

First up is a major outing for the Moto2 and 125cc classes at Barcelona's Montmelo circuit. A total of 42 riders are expected to take to the track, including the cream of the 125cc crop and some of the major players in Moto2. 

In the 125cc class, the four favorites for the title will face off for the first time. The Derbis of Pol Espargaro and Marc Marquez will be up against the Aprilias of Bradley Smith and Nico Terol, as the teams and riders prepare for the championship. 

Smith returns to the Aspar fold, after failing to find a place in Moto2. In compensation, however, Smith will start the season with the best chance of becoming the first British World Champion since Barry Sheene in 1977. He knows the bike and the team, and his biggest challenge may come from his still growing body, as he inches north of 5'8, outgrowing the ideal size for a 125 racer.

The 2011 MotoGP Silly Season is already the biggest news of 2010, and the year is just a few weeks old. Shots have been fired over various bows in the runup to the summer, when negotiations with all four members of the Aliens - Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa, whose contracts expire at the end of 2010 - will commence.

The biggest target for all three major manufacturers - Yamaha, Honda and Ducati - is probably the nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi. So far, Rossi has been decidedly ambiguous about his own plans, flirting openly with Ducati one moment whilst avowing his loyalty to Yamaha the next. Rumors persist that Rossi is considering a switch to Ducati - fueled by the dreams and desires of 60 million Italians - and even Honda have hinted they would welcome a return. So the press, and especially the Italian press, seize on any opportunity to search for any hint of Rossi's intentions for 2011.

With the Italian currently lapping the Barcelona track in a 2008 Ferrari F2008 Formula One car - a "gift" from his friend, Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali - Alberto Porta of the Italian broadcaster SportMediaSet put a few questions to Valentino Rossi's father, Graziano, who was also at the test. In the video interview, Porta asks Graziano Rossi a series of questions about Rossi's future, both in the short and long term.

From the moment Gabor Talmacsi confirmed the rumors of a ride with the Team Scot Honda squad in MotoGP by turning up at Barcelona with a new sponsor and a contract, the writing has been on the wall for Yuki Takahashi. Despite the denials and promises from the team to try and find a way of accommodating both riders, in reality, it was merely a question of time before the Japanese rider would be forced to make way for the Hungarian, who was bringing a much-needed cash injection into the squad.

That time, according to the authoratitive Italian site GPOne.com, is now. Takahashi, it is being reported, has been withdrawn from the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, ostensibly to allow surgery to be performed for back problems Takahashi suffered in his crash at Barcelona. The surgery will require a recovery period of 3 months, leaving Takahashi sidelined for the rest of the season. Just how badly Takahashi required surgery remains open to speculation, but his back injury is extremely convenient.

Team Scot manager Cirano Mularoni was open about the problems faced running two riders without spare bikes. "It was a difficult situation," he told GPone.com," because contrary to what I had read, extra spares were not available for the RC212V, a situation which would have gotten worse after Brno, with the limit on the numbers of engines. Not to mention the problems we would have faced in a flag-to-flag race, where we would have been forced to change wheels instead of bikes." Just where Mularoni read that Honda had extra RC212V parts lying around is a bit of a mystery, for HRC have made no secret of their aversion to supplying any more bikes, especially since sales slumped in aftermath of the global financial crisis.

The last lap at Barcelona was one for the ages, with the lead swapping four times before the flag finally fell. In the post-race press conference with Casey Stoner, the subject of that pass almost inevitably came up, as Stoner passed Rossi in exactly the same place in 2007. Ever forthright in his opinion, Stoner was clear about how Rossi's victory came about. "It was a silly mistake by Jorge," Stoner said. "He was just that confident that he had it in the bag, that he braked too early. Even where he braked, I brake later than that. If you get a little bit better run up there, it's so easy just to run it up inside. You saw it was an easy pass."

"Jorge braked earlier than he had been braking all race. I was behind him earlier, and he was braking much later than that then." But Stoner didn't expect Lorenzo to make the same mistake in the future. "He was just thinking about getting a run for the line. But Jorge learns, and he'll learn from this mistake."

Testing has started in the first of the extremely restricted test programs, the amount of testing having been slashed for cost-cutting purposes over the winter. Dani Pedrosa is sitting out the test, preferring to rest in the hope that his injured femur will recover in time for Assen, while the Tech 3 team are also absent.

Andrea Dovizioso is testing the new chassis for HRC, while Ducati is testing a new rear shock, the carbon fiber swingarm and some electronics updates, as well as a revised tail section which lifts the seat higher.

Yamaha has little to test, and so Jorge Lorenzo is mainly working on refining setup. According to MCN, Valentino Rossi is due test a revised version of the M1 engine, designed to last for two races, ready for the new regulations which come into effect after Brno. From then, the riders will have 5 engines to last 7 races, and Yamaha need to ensure that the new engine has not sacrificed performance for durability. As of 1pm, Rossi had yet to take to the track, though. Rossi is notorious for his hatred of early mornings, and will probably wait until the afternoon to make an appearance.

Update - Valentino Rossi took to the track during the afternoon session, run between 2pm and 6pm, but is without Jerry Burgess, who is headed back to Australia for the funeral of his mother, who died on Saturday. One incident of note was the consequences of a crash by Pramac Ducati's Niccolo Canepa: The Italian had crashed going very slowly (about 40 km/h, according to GPONe.com) while testing the carbon fiber swingarm. As a result of that crash, the swingarm cracked, underlining the risks of using CF as a structural material. However, both Canepa and Kallio were about half a second quicker with the new CF swingarm than they were on the aluminium one yesterday, so its benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Final times (courtesy of GPOne.com)

The dramatic last lap at the Catalunya Grand Prix will be talked about for many years to come. And it's a lap that's worth watching again and again, so here it is for your enjoyment: