There's no denying the boy can ride, the only guy to really tame the big red turd, but I for one won't missing 'Stoner the Moaner'.

Pssst, Honda, sign up Cal!

I'm not sure they'll take Marquez yet. I think he needs another year.

My reckoning is Rossi on a year contract alongside Pedrosa, Burgess to retire, Pedrosa told 'it's going to be you or Rossi out the door in 2014, it's up to you who goes.'

Also, as I said on BB - I'll miss his riding, but I won't miss him.

I don't think it's politics - I just think he's not enjoying it and he's got a young family.

I have never heard of that. Quite a silly rule IMHO, but fair enough.

CRT bikes are prototype frames with tuned roadbike engines and less fancy electronics and stuff - 'cheap' MotoGP bikes basically to pad out a shrinking grid based on the same principles as Moto2 bikes (Moto2 bikes are prototype frames, only with a ‘standard’ 1-make tuned CBR600 engine).

The plan is to restrict the MotoGP regs slowly over the next couple of years so eventually the CRT bikes and MotoGP bikes will be all the same and we'll have cheaper, closer racing rather than 4 "Aliens" on the 2 best Factory bikes racing and everyone else racing for 5th whilst the constructors look at the stupid money bills for racing, and increasing popularity of WSBKs and think "is there any point in spending $x million a year racing MotoGP to have our bikes not look as good as Honda and Yamaha.

I think everyone has been surprised by how close they've been. It's not been a strict case of the 6 factory bikes, followed by the 10 or so leased factory followed by all the CRT lot.

I wouldn't been surprised if there's not a couple of 'Factory CRT' bikes next year

EFA

not entirely.

The full MotoGP bikes are completely one off.

Spooky, I was just saying to the other half (an aussie) about 2 days before the announcement casey's the type who'll probably quit while he's at the top, go back to the farm and never look back, and it probably won't be too far in the future.

While I don't begrudge him his success he's never struck me as someone who lives and breaths the bikes like many of the others, he's just naturally gifted so just does what he's does well. The fact he never cared for the lifestyle is well documented... wish him all the best.

So is Stoner a bit like motoGP's Kimi then?

Isn't one of the stipulations of CRT that there's no factory involvement, all the manufacturers can do is sell an engine and/or chassis, they can't run a team themselves AFAIK.