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MotoGP: Intrigue, gossip and rumour

At Sepang, there was a small session of hangbags between Scott Redding and Karel Abraham. Redding was apparently fulled fed up with the Cardion Honda man just hanging about, waiting for a tow, so he pointed it out…

Leon Haslam could be facing a nightmare. Rumour has it that Aprilia’s woefully slow MotoGP Marco Melandri could be swapped back to the World Superbike Championship and the Derbyshire man’s Red Devils Roma team-mate Jordi Torres promoted to join Alvaro Bautista at Gresini.

This will not please Haslam one bit, should it occur. When at BMW, the pair were far from best buddies and it is probably the most antagonistic relationship Haslam had been involved in since the Airwaves Ducati days with Gregori0 Lavilla - who is now WSBK series director.

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Melandri finished the second set of Sepang tests a mile off the pace, Tweeting at the end of day two that he simply couldn’t ride. He got faster on day three, but so did everyone else, so the gap ended up at 4.454 to Marc Marquez. He would be lapped early with that sort of pace.

It would appear that Ducati have managed what both Honda and Yamaha haven’t and made their seamless-shift gearbox work with the Open class spec-Marelli electronics.

Hector Barbera was running the system at Sepang II which means Ducati, or someone equally clever, have found a way to use the system without altering the firmware in the ECU or a new update now allows seamless to be used and only Ducati have figured that out.

Michelin chief Nicolas Goubert reported that a majority of riders who tested on Thursday were pleased with the performance of the rear tyre but the front needed work. Or rather, as is usual with tyre companies, there was nothing wrong with, everyone needs to ride differently or change their setup to suit.

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