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I’d like to see Kawi keep him
Are you teasing something? Farewell season in the US?
Seems like Renaux will be out at Yamaha. Will he take the spot of Coenen at KTM?
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I would imagine that Zanocz only took the KTM deal this offseason if it was a multi-year deal. I mean he must have been in demand after finishing 2nd in emx250 in your rookie season after winning emx125 the year before.
obviously only speculating from my side, but i would be surprised if he is a free agent this offseason. So i would expect him back at a supported KTM team in '27.
I'm starting to look like a Gatedrop pr-assistent, but they are posting a lot of rumours/stories... Now they say Hutten would lose the Yamaha MX2 factory deal at the end of the year when the contract would end.
What will Yamaha then be looking for as MX2 team?
Yeah my comment regarding him was in context to the Factory KTM MX2 situation. He would've been a perfect pick for them for -27 if he would've performed better this season. And i guess they could choose him despite his performances this year, because there is obviously potential there and i think he is working with Smets?
Listening to Big Lew it sounds like they have been seen as under delivering by Yamaha Japan. I think he said Yam Japan are going to take on a larger role with the Yamaha programs moving forward.
I think he's living with Joel from a video I saw recently...
I did think Zanocz was going to be better this year but I understand he didn't realise the step up from EMX250 to MX2.
I understand that Dirt Store Triumph have opted out of continuing in MXGP this year. Both Watson and Askew were absent last weekend.
Watson didn't want to go as he feels he needed more testing with suspension and mapping, as he's struggling at the moment. No breakup with his team, according to Lewis Phillips on the VitalMX podcast.
What a shit career move that was from Watson. And i said it when it got announced, i did not understand how some people (incl. Lewis) were excited by the move. Still to this day i haven't seen a guy go from being a full-time GP rider to European rounds only and become better/take steps forward in their careers.
I hear this as well and it’s not only Hutten but also Kemea that might lose their factory status. Apparently Yamaha will operate from a structure in Italy and maybe Star Racing is getting directly involved as well.
Hutten has announced it on mxvice that they have parted from Yamaha
A Englishman on a English triumph had big Lew tickled pink
No, I'm not.
😉
Watson is overrated and that’s coming from a Brit.
The Dirt Store Team skipped Montiavarchi to do a local race here in the UK, at Blaxhall, which had a pretty decent field.
Blaxhall will host the final round of the Motul ACU British Championship, in september which the team have as a priority over MXGP at this point for their UK sponsors.
With Watson riding for Euro Teams for a long time, he has not ridden a lot of these UK tracks recently, and the 1 day format has been a problem for him , according to the podium interviews we have done with him.
So choosing to do that , over a trip to Italy, makes a lot of sense.
They 'should' be in Portugal.
Pit Row
In my opinion at the time, he was so disillusioned with Beta (understandably so) that any change was good...
I appreciated that it was a backwards move on paper, but felt it'd give him a mental spurt to push on again.
Hopefully it still does. I'd like to see Watson and Triumph find success, together or apart.
Blame pie - 70 percent Yamaha NL, 30 percent Wim Hutten.
2025 was a horrible year with the team using the underwhelming and sometimes unreliable Rinaldi R&D engines, and Hutten not pushing back much when they knew the bike was not good.
250 and 450 motor failures at numerous races including two in the span of one hour literally right in front of me at Lommel in the first motos.
Monster was going to pull team sponsorship as well possibly.
near the end of 25 riders were limited on testing and training due to blown budgets, sometimes limited to 1 training day per week.
Shit behind the scenes was not good for morale.
I wonder if Hutten will start a new team, the facility was just expanded in 2023 and is fairly nice...
Yamaha Europe should’ve never stopped leasing the Star motors that had Geerts up front
So his Mx1 victory at MXoN was just luck then?
It he had got a second season on the Yamaha, it would have been epic, instead he got destroyed by the Green Pig.
There is so much you will never know.
Here lies the problem. Let’s say I’m an outside sponsor looking to throw cash at a team cause I like rider “A” but rider A isn’t doing to good he looks like he’s lost it. I take said cash to another team. Holding back on info is a two way street.
i read that 4 times and it makes no sense.
Reading that, how on earth did they get Gajser to sign?
That was nearly 6 years ago, 2020 or was it 21? Yamaha didn’t retain him for a reason.
What he’s basically saying is, if a sponsor was looking at Watson, said sponsor wouldn’t throw money at a rider that cannot perform.
Its clear that Yamaha has been a mess, but tbh i'm not sure why an oem would look at team Hutten and say: Yep, thats the team that is going to win me a world championship, i need them.
Thats not a dig at Hutten, its just that if Martens, F&H, Standing etc all lose factory status/dont get it then why would Hutten be a better option?
I wish he would see the value and enjoyment in doing a privateer setup. Something like a better version of Mikula or last years Oliver. The sport would be better with a strong private team in mx2 getting near top 5 with a combo of for example Valk and Mikula.
Remember Hutten was Yamaha’s EMX250 team for many years. They got allot succes in that series with many wins an titles.
When Kemea went 450 the 250 side openend up, so its not that crazy and a pretty logically move from Yamaha to give that effort to Hutten.
They also got rewarded for their succes and investment they made into the Yamaha pyramid.
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