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Shinya Nakano will leave from Kawasaki to replace Makoto Tamada at Konika Minolta. This was confirmed by the MotoGP Kawasaki Racing team manager Harald Eckl to motogp.com:
“Shinya has decided not to continue with Kawasaki next year, so we are looking at another rider to join our team (alongside Randy de Puniet)” also Eckl has denied the rumors about Hiroshi Aoyama will replace Shinya due to an already signed contract between the 250cc star and KTM. Another rumor was blasted by Kawasaki team manager about Max Biaggi which will break his contract with Alstare Suzuki WSBK and join Eckl’s team in 2007:
“That was just a rumour. Even Max called me and said ‘what’s this about me coming to Kawasaki?’ and I said ‘no Max, we will not contact you about the ride’ and that is the end of the rumour and any speculation about Max,”

Many other important pilots’ names were related by Kawasaki like Alex Barros, Sete Gibernau and Carlos Checa but none was confirmed.

Carlos Checa is still wanted for another year in his team Tech 3 Yamaha even his name was linked with Ducati among with Kawasaki. His team mate James Ellison is not in same position and looks like he will loose his position from Tech 3 Yamaha.

Also Sete Gibernau seems to be replaced in Ducati team by the Honda rookie Casey Stoner, his statement wasn’t very clean-cut:”I suppose we are nearer to a conclusion to the saga of what I’ll be doing next season, because we are nearer the end of 2006!” smiled Casey.

At the 125cc class KTM announced that junior team will be integrated into the main factory team and KTM will have with at least 4 riders for the next year. Only 3 pilots were officially announced by the KTM Road Racing Director – Harald Bartol: Julian Simon (Spain, 19 years), Tomoyoshi Koyama (Japan, 23 years) and the junior rider Randy Krummenacher (Switzerland, 16 years):
“We are very pleased that as well as Julian Simon, Tomoyoshi Koyama signed with us during the recent Grand Prix in Japan and together with junior rider Randy Krummenacher, rounds up the team.” said Harald Bartol about new pack of KTM riders for 2007 “By doing this we can be sure that we will be able to have a maximum amount of success with our project” continued Racing Director about the new mix of the KTM factory team with their junior team.

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