Pere Replaced By Adrian Martin In World Championship Squad

Having got all excited posting up the San Marino event schedule and everything it's come as something of a shock and a disappointment to find out that we won't be watching Tutu after all...

Team Bancaja Aspar (according to reports at dailymotos.com) has announced that Pere Tutusaus will be replaced in the 125cc World Championship for the remainder of the season by Adrian Martin (although the team will apparently field local rider Patrick Jacobsen at Indy).
This substitution begins this weekend at San Marino, and according to Aspar is to allow Pere to concentrate on his campaign with the team in Spain’s CEV Championship where he currently lies fourth.
Tutu has run as a wildcard in the World Championships five times during 2006 and 2007, and 2008 is his first proper campaign on the team (he has a three year contract with Bancaja Aspar in the World Championship, according to our reading of the Aspar website).
He currently stands in 26th in the Championship, having pulled back some decent race performances from sometimes disappointing qualifyings, but having proven a solid rider - and particularly so in tricky conditions such as France and China.

WE SAY: Whilst it’s clearly a sign that Aspar wants Pere to focus on the CEV title, and of course that title is about the team no just the rider, so it’s hardly surprising, it is nonetheless disappointing that we won’t see Tutu continue to develop and get experience in the world class this year. Personally I can’t help feeling that if he’d been doing a bit better this decision simply wouldn’t have arisen. I hope I’m wrong, but we all know how deeply sport is about politick as much as genuine sporting strategy.
Let’s hope the move is a wise one and that Pere makes the most of his CEV challenge and that the team is swift to bring him back into the World Championship squad...

Pere - Post Race Quotes; Brno

"I am happy because we have solved the problema of the weekend. The setting was hard to find, so today's result was pretty good. I was fast in the race and was able to fight with a group, with some of my CEV rivals.
I had another great start, and that really helped me out. The Aprilia has a lot of acceleration, but we weren't quite Fast enough. I am happy with my pace."

CEV Round 3, Jerez - Race: Pere Takes Second Place

(*Above - Pere Tutusaus following hard on the tail of Luis Salom at Jerez today)

An excellent result for Pere today in Round 3 of the Spanish CEV Championships, held at Jerez, where he was competing in the 125cc class. Rounding off a superb weekend's performances, our guy followed up his 4th in Qualifying with a great podium position in the race... 2nd.
The race was initially red-flagged following a huge accident which injured four of the riders...
Great going, and hopefully a confidence-boosting weekend ahead of next weekend's MotoGP at Donington.

Brilliant work Pere - Absolutely tops :)

Here's the top ten:

1. Luis Jaime SALOM, APRILIA, 29:49.413
2. Pere TUTUSAUS, APRILIA, 29:49.995
3. Efrén VÁZQUEZ, APRILIA, 29:50.321
4. Lorenzo SAVADORI, APRILIA, 29:52.079
5. Adrián MARTÍN, APRILIA, 30:07.001
6. Alberto MONCAYO, DERBI, 30:11.241
7. Cristian TRABALÓN, APRILIA, 30:11.710
8. Óscar CLIMENT, APRILIA, 30:12.292
9. Julián MIRALLES, APRILIA, 30:12.701
10. Kazuya OTANI, HONDA, 30:17.873

Win a Limited Edition Aspar Jacket with LondonBikers.com

We, who you may or may not know, also run BatiFans.com - The Alvaro Bautista Fan Forum have put another of those excellent limited edition Team Aspar jackets up to be won.
This time we've teamed up with the triffick people over at LondonBikers.com who are offering it up as a prize for a pre-British GP competition with a question so easy that any Alvaro Bautista fan should be able to answer it in their sleep.
We suggest you get over there and enter now to be in with another chance of winning one of these rare and rather cool jackets.
And enjoy a great biking website while you're there too, of course... :D

Click here to go to LondonBikers.com...

Catalunya GP - Event Schedule

Friday Jun 6
125cc :: Free Practice 1 :: 09:00-09:45 
MotoGP :: Free Practice 1 :: 10:00-11:00 
250cc :: Free Practice 1 :: 11:15-12:15 
125cc :: Qualifying 1 :: 13:10-13:40
MotoGP :: Free Practice 2 :: 13:55-14:55 
250cc :: Qualifying 1 :: 15:10-15:55


Saturday June 7
125cc :: Free Practice 2 :: 09:00-09:45 
MotoGP :: Free Practice 3 :: 10:00-11:00 
250cc :: Free Practice 2 :: 11:15-12:15 
125cc :: Qualifying 2 :: 13:10-13:40 
MotoGP :: Qualifying 1 :: 13:55-14:55 
250cc :: Qualifying 2 :: 15:10-15:55


Sunday June 8
125cc :: Warm-Up :: 08:40-09:00 
250cc :: Warm-Up :: 09:10-09:30 
MotoGP :: Warm-Up :: 09:40-10:05 
125cc :: Race :: 11:00-11:45 
250cc :: Race :: 12:30-13:00 
MotoGP :: Race :: 14:00-15:00

(*All times local)

Best Yet For Pere: 12th In Rain-Stricken French GP

A great result for Pere today, as he came home 12th in an eventful French GP run in tricky conditions.
The 125 race was rain-affected, starting dry (with Tutu 29th on the grid) but stopped with 9 of the 24 laps remaining as a shower started and a number of riders started to go down.
Pere was up to 21st by this point and so started from that position for the "second race" of 5 laps (calculated from arcane regs governing interrupted and foreshortened races).
The race was eventually won by Mike Di Meglio, and with an amazing comeback run from a justifiably elated 2nd place guy Bradley Smith.

Today's result puts Pere up to 24th in the overall Championship standings with 5 points.
Job well done Tutu :)

Pere Takes First Point In Shanghai

An excellent, solid ride from Pere Tutusaus today in tricky conditions to bring home his Bancaja Aspar Aprilia in 15th place, taking his first World Championship point.
On a day when quite a few riders were caught out by wet to greasy conditions, he kept his head down and came in safe and sound, whilst other - and more experienced - guys were busy throwing it away.
Superb job; very glad I got up early to see this step forward in his career :)
And I can tell you it's also cheered me up a bit over Alvaro's awful day up in 250...

Here's the results in full...

CLASSIFIED:

Pos | Rider | Bike | Time
1. Andrea Iannone Aprilia 46:02.275
2. Mike Di Meglio Derbi + 3.355
3. Gabor Talmacsi Aprilia + 3.451
4. Pol Espargaro Derbi + 14.028
5. Stefan Bradl Aprilia + 23.853
6. Joan Olive Derbi + 31.962
7. Michael Ranseder Aprilia + 33.758
8. Nicolas Terol Aprilia + 34.696
9. Raffaele De Rosa KTM + 34.838
10. Efren Vazquez Aprilia + 41.011
11. Esteve Rabat KTM + 41.139
12. Marc Marquez KTM + 43.677
13. Tomoyoshi Koyama KTM + 53.489
14. Steve Bonsey Aprilia + 54.462
15. Pere Tutusaus Aprilia + 58.706
16. Sandro Cortese Aprilia + 59.454
17. D. Agerter Derbi +1:10.704
18. Louis Rossi Honda +1:47.918
19. H. van den Berg Aprilia +1:50.406


NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

Rider | Bike | On lap
R. Krummenacher KTM 16
Scott Redding Aprilia 15
Lorenzo Zanetti KTM 11
Daniel Webb Aprilia 10
Robert Muresan Aprilia 9
Alexis Masbou Loncin 9
Robin Lasser Aprilia 7
R. Lacalendola Aprilia 7
Bradley Smith Aprilia 6
Simone Corsi Aprilia 5
Takaaki Nakagami Aprilia 4
Sergio Gadea Aprilia 1

FASTEST LAP: Ranseder, 2:23.432 on lap 19

Pere Tutusaus: Quotes from Jerez GP

As it turned out, Pere Tutusaus had the peculiar distinction of being the only Team Aspar rider to finish in either 125cc or 250cc races at Jerez on Sunday, taking a solid and well-deserved 19th place in the final results.

Even so, Pere was not completely satisfied with his showing, and - according to quotes on dailymotos.com - is aware that could still give more:
“I feel that I am still not at the level that I would like. I feel as if other riders are one step ahead of me. I am a bit disappointed because I wanted to do the very best possible in Jerez. Now I must move on to Portugal. Estoril is a circuit that I know well and on which I hope to do better..."

Whilst it’s understandable he wants to do better, let's bear in mind that he’s still only done 2 *proper* world championship races, so he shouldn’t be too hard on himself.
He’s coming along nicely - and I’ll be only too happy to see him do better and better, but I’ll not be down on him if it takes a few more races yet... :)

Go Pere!

Quote from Pere; Aspar Team Launch 2008

Pere was at the Bancaja Aspar Team 2008 Presentation, held at the Hippodrome de la Zarzuela in Madrid on February 25th, along with fellow 125cc riders Gabor Talmacsi and Sergio Gadea, and 250cc crew Alvaro Bautista and Hector Faubel.
Pere’s the youngest of the team of course, and the newbie - and seems to be looking forward to a challenging first season...
Here’s what he said:
“This is a year to learn and to try and adapt to the bike.
And thanks to Bancaja, I can learn from the best...”

Pere Tutusaus: Biography & Career

(*Above: some images from Pere's motorcycling career)


For Pere Tutusaus - the youngest member of the Bancaja Aspar Team - living in the world of two wheels, began at the age of two once his mother gave him his first motorbike, a Yamaha Piwi. At the age of seven, Pere started racing in Tous, a small village near Barcelona, and he scored the 11th position at the finish.
The following year (1998) he competed in the Cataluña initiation enduro championship, with a KTM given to him by his father the year before. He finished 3rd.
Throughout this year he made the third step of podium, except in the last race where he finished second. The quality of young Pere was evident and continued in 1999 when he was proclaimed champion of Cataluña initiation enduro championship, winning all the races except one. Those days he was riding a Polini motorbike in TV-Competition team (Tutusaus-Vila) created by his father.

2000 was a difficult year for Pere when he ran in the Cataluña enduro 65cc championship. That year the 65cc and 80cc were united categories and the adaptation became complicated.
Even so, the rider from Igualada also ran in the Cataluña supermotard and enduro championship - gaining the third position at the end of the season, riding a Kawasaki.

In 2001 Pere ran in the Cataluña and Andorra Promocup championships and managed runner-up with a Conti motorbike.
In 2002 Pere showed his value and skill once again and became RAC 50cc champion.  The Spaniard was extremely strong thourought the season and won all races except two. One, in which he could not race because of a bone fracture, and last race that was run in rain, in which Pere clinched the title. That year Pere also won a race in the Spanish cup in Valencia. The reward of a season filled with triumphs was to travel to the United States to compete as a Wild Card in the American mini motos championship. Pere ran in the categories of 50cc and 80cc and he collected a win and a third position. It was a great feat considering that he ran both races with a 50cc Metrakit and Pere remembers this North American adventure with much affection.

In 2003 Pere made his debut in 125cc, being part of the RACC Impala team (Honda) in the championship of Cataluña where his best result was a second, which he scored twice. That year he also made his debut in the CEV (Spanish championship) at the circuit of Albacete, where he did one of the best starts of his career to date: from 20th position on the grid he arrived at the end of the straight in the lead. A collision with another rider made him lose many positions, although he finally crossed the line in 16th.

In 2004 he ran in the championship of Cataluña and all the races of the Spanish Championship with the RACC-Caja Madrid Team (Honda), under the guidance of Emilio Alzamora and finished 22nd in the overall classification. In 2005 Pere continued in the RACC-Caja Madrid Team and won for the first time in 125cc., in the third race of the championship of Cataluña in Albacete. It was a hard year for the young rider, because he had many problems with the engine of his Honda which broke in several races.
In 2006 Pere raced with the RACC Derbi Team and, having recovered his optimism as well as his good speed, managed a second position and finished the fifth in the final classification of the Spanish Championship. This allowed him to make his debut as a Wild Card in the Cheste Grand Prix, where he finished in 26th.

The 2007 was probably one of the best years in the Pere’s career, because with the FMCV-Team he performed among the best riders currently in Spain and was able to finish fourth in the overall classification of the CEV championship. This year Pere also won a CEV race. It was the first race of the national championship that was run in Albacete, where the young rider won and also took the pole. The current roikie of the Bancaja Aspar Team was Wild Card in the Grands Prix of Portugal, Jerez, Cataluña and Valencia. His best results in his first grand prix outings that year was 16th in Jerez.

All these great results and achievements opened doors for the 125cc rookie and in 2008 Pere ran in both the CEV and the MotoGP 125cc world championship. 2009 sees him riding for Team Go Eleven PMS in the FIM Superstock 1000cc World Championship.