If the summer break allows drivers and teams to take some rest, this is not necessarily the case for certain drivers' agents who are pulling out all the stops to place their protégé in a team in 2018.
The majority operate in Moto3 and Moto2, but even in MotoGP, there are still a few places available which are the object of all covetousness...
The most beautiful could have been at Suzuki where Andrea Iannone currently appears to be in difficulty. But despite disappointing current results and supposed contacts with Aprilia where Sam Lowes seems to be in the hot seat, the contract linking the Italian driver to the Hamamatsu firm seems set to last until the end of 2018.
Otherwise, Alvaro Bautista, a moment in contact, has also just declined Aprilia's proposal and will remain with Aspar in 2018.
Cal Crutchlow having recovered the HRC contract de Jack Miller, he would be on the verge of seizing the ejection seat of Scott Redding at Pramac, including teammate, Danilo Petrucci, has just been made official Ducati factory rider.
The English driver's teammate within the LCR team could, under pressure from Honda, be named Takaaki Nakagami but several Italian-sounding names would also be on the list of possibilities.
At Marc VDS, we hope until the last moment to keep the Australian driver Jack Miller alongside a Franco Morbidelli recently signed for the 2018 MotoGP season for 3 years. Otherwise, it could save Tito Rabat in an unexpected way… or Scott Redding, the child of the family!
Finally, it is at Avintia that the vagueness seems most complete. Neither of the two current drivers, Loris Baz et Hector Barbera, has not yet signed for next year, and if they obviously remain in the running to keep their machines, two new names are also starting to appear as contenders, alongside that of Tito Rabat a moment mentioned.
The first is that ofAxel Pons whose father, according to Mela Chercoles for As, would be ready to stop his Moto2 team to bring 2 million from his sponsors to his son in MotoGP. We might be surprised by the amount put forward by the Spanish journalist, but, with a sixth place at Mugello 2016 as his best result, we must have other arguments...
The second, undoubtedly more serious, would be the friendly Belgian pilot Xavier Simeon which would also have the funds necessary for the operation. He can at least boast one victory (Germany 2015) and two second places (Argentina 2014, Qatar 2015) in Moto2. The sum should therefore logically be (a little) lower…
We remind you that all these rumors are most of the time true at any given time but that the situation is constantly evolving from day to day. The final result may therefore be very different from the picture depicted in this article. And it wouldn't be our fault! 😉
