125

With just over a week to go to the start of the 2013 MotoGP season, it's time to take another trip down memory lane and get ourselves excited about this season's racing. Today, shots from MotoMatters.com star shooter Scott Jones taken at Jerez. Remember also to check out the special offers Scott has on signed photos, including riders such as Casey Stoner, Cal Crutchlow and Nicky Hayden. Not long to go now...

Welcome to Spain!

Dani Pedrosa, working the Repsol Honda

Coming into the last lap of 2012 Czech Republic Grand Prix many fans fell back in love with MotoGP series. It does not happen very often, but victory at Brno was still to be decided with just a single lap to go. Spaniards Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo were pushing each other using not just every MotoGP riding trick they had, but also everything they learnt since the pair were still young and wild 125 class riders.

If you are a true road racing enthusiast and love the action on the track, whatever the national flag a race winner may be carrying on the lap of honor, I am sure you really enjoined the battle at Brno between Pedrosa and Lorenzo. After all, if watching a MotoGP bike and rider perform at their maximum is a pleasure on its own, watching two fighting for victory on the last lap definitely brings some glorious memories back, including Roberts-Spencer, Gardner-Lawson, Rainey-Schwantz, Doohan-Crivillé or Rossi-Biaggi as some of the toughest encounters on the track.

The battle between Pedrosa and Lorenzo at Brno was great racing but, with the unfortunate absence of Casey Stoner and the Aussie’s plans to retire at the end of 2012 season, this battle left the pinnacle of road racing in the hands of Spanish riders too, as has been happening with Moto2, 125 or Moto3 series in the last few years.

Though it is hard to see Assen without remembering the old a painful reminder of the old six kilometre long layout, we’ll still be glad to watch the Moto3 bikes racing for first time at Dutch TT this weekend. Especially if you are still thrilled by the action seen at Silverstone a couple of weeks ago -with up to eleven riders fighting for a place on the rostrum-, you just can’t wait to watch a new chapter of these young lions racing and writing Moto3 history in its debut season.

Maverick Viñales is the new leader in the standings after the British Grand Prix (105 points) with Sandro Cortese in second place (103). Luis Salom stands third (75 points) thanks to his fighting spirit and getting best out of his Kalex KTM, exactly the same bike Aspar riders Héctor Faubel (28 points) and Alberto Moncayo (36) are riding nowhere near the front at this moment of the season. Kalex riders have been progressively provided with a new frame since the Barcelona race, but Faubel and Moncayo still have problems in finding the speed the new class demands. It’s a hard situation for a team which dominated the series in four of the last six seasons of 125 class history, until its end in 2011.

A Ducati in the hills of Tuscany. It doesn't get much better than this.

But a Rossi podium was not going to happen at Mugello, despite the GP11.1

Ant West had a tough 2011, but it got better once Warren Willing joined him in the MZ garage

Intensity, by Valentino Rossi

Alvaro Bautista had a very strong year on the Suzuki. But they still left

Marco Simoncelli proved to be both fast and error-prone at Silverstone, starting from the front row but crashing out of the race

Cresting the hill: Valentino Rossi, Cal Crutchlow, and Hiroshi Aoyama

Ready to rumble at Aragon

Sunsets on the Meseta are a thing of beauty

Marco, exercising his mojo

After Nico Terol finally clinched the 125cc World Championship at Valencia, the Aspar press office went into overdrive, issuing a positive avalanche of press releases covering every aspect of Terol the rider and the title he won. They have been assembled below, starting with the official Dorna press release, and continuing with the pile of Aspar press releases:

Nico Terol – 2011 125cc World Champion

Nico Terol marked his name down in history as the last ever 125cc World Champion by taking the 2011 title, following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Julián Simón and Marc Márquez who preceded the 23 year-old from Alcoy in a strong Spanish dominance of the category in recent years.

Terol made his Grand Prix debut in 2004 as a replacement for the injured Mike di Meglio in the 125cc class at the final round of the season in Valencia, having finished fourth in his national Championship, and the following year in 2005 he competed in his first full Grand Prix campaign on board a Derbi.

A promising 2006 saw Terol have a strong second half of the season as he regularly scored top-ten finishes, but that progress wavered somewhat the following year as he failed to improve on his final Championship finish.

Press releases from the 125cc and Moto2 teams, tire supplier and chassis manufacturers after the final race of the year at Valencia:

The last race of the year is always one for farewells, but we had an awful lot of goodbyes on Sunday at Valencia. The last ever race for the 800cc MotoGP bikes, the last ever race of Loris Capirossi's very long and highly colorful career (some paddock wags suggesting that the first win of his career came against a rider called Maximus Decimus Meridius), the end of the two-stroke Grand Prix era, with the 125cc bikes making way for the Moto3 machines. The departure of some of the finest journalists and broadcasters from the paddock, as the Spanish state TV company TVE ended its tenure in the paddock. Riders heading off to the World Superbike paddock, some returning to their old stomping ground, as is the case with Kenan Sofuoglu, others to try pastures new, Hiroshi Aoyama joining the Ten Kate Honda squad.

Results and summary of the 125cc race at Valencia:

Results:

Marco Simoncelli is to receive a fitting tribute at Valencia on Sunday. Paolo Simoncelli, Marco's father, had asked for a minute of "casino" (an Italian word that translates as chaos or noise) instead of a minute of silence, but Marco is to get all this and a little more. At 10:10 local time (find that time in your timezone using this link) riders from 125, Moto2 and MotoGP have been invited to join a lap of honor at Valencia, led by Kevin Schwantz aboard Marco Simoncelli's Honda RC212V.

The lap of honor will be followed by the noise in Simoncelli's name: once all of the bikes have come to a standstill in front of the massed paddock, led by Simoncelli's family and his San Carlo Gresini team, two minutes of Valencian fireworks will ensue, a deafening racket of firecrackers.

Result and summary of qualifying for the 125cc class at Valencia:

The track at Valencia is dry (or almost dry) for the first time this weekend), and the difference it makes on the track is immediate. Lap times have tumbled, though the few damp patches still on the track are just enough of a nuisance to take a couple of seconds off the best time. Johann Zarco was the fastest man in the third session of free practice for the 125cc class, ending the session with a comfortable lead over RW Racing's Luis Salom. Salom was, in turn, just a fraction ahead of Efren Vazquez and Nico Terol, Terol finding his feet again after struggling in the wet on Friday.

Results: