Fernando Alonso will NOT test the Ducati

Early this morning, on December 28th, we reported the news that Fernando Alonso was going to ride the new Ducati GP12, in January tests where he would run alongside Carlos Checa at the Jerez track. Of course, and as many of you commented on the various social networks, it was an April Fools’ joke.

Everything came together in the early hours, when this small team set about cooking up a little prank to wake you up. I think it has been one of the most believable of all those published today, and now I’ll run through them for you so that, if you didn’t know about them, you can have a good laugh at the cleverness we crazy two-wheel enthusiasts have.

We start with Motocuatro, who linked to the video of what is the most famous April Fools’ joke in the motorcycle world: the one by the great Valentín Requena and Ángel Nieto, announcing that the 12+1 was returning to the world championship in the sidecar category. Here’s the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkMJFrqpdlA

The guys at A2Ruedas posted a tweet early on announcing that the fifteen-time world champion Giacomo Agostini would be in charge of kicking off the Vespa brand’s journey in the new Moto3 category.

At Motociclismo, they announced a special programme on Telecinco for the Grands Prix held in Spain, hosted by Jorge Javier Vázquez and Belén Esteban, called “Sálvame MotoGP”, and they even dared to give away no fewer than 40 double VIP passes to watch it…

And Xavi Pérez, manager of Nico Terol, informed us that the world champion would compete against Antena 3’s daily news programme on Telecinco, with a show called “El diario de Nico”. Belén Esteban would also be providing the gossip coverage of the MotoGP riders. It’s clear that Telecinco’s arrival in this world is a goldmine…

Pablo Nieto must have also inherited his father’s joking tone, since he tried to pull two on us. In the first, he teamed up with Héctor Barberá to tell us they would field a team in the CEV with two top riders. Efrén Vázquez posted shortly afterwards that he was publicly turning down the suspension technician position. In the afternoon, Pablo announced that Ana Fernández and he were going to be parents, and showed a supposed ultrasound…

Aleix Espargaró said he was moving to Superbikes because Aprilia would not build a CRT for this year, and that Aspar had called him to see what they would do about his future, while at Motoworld they announced the merger of MotoGP and Superbikes into a single championship, taking advantage of Bridgepoint’s purchase a few days earlier.

On ClubMoto1, they announced that at the 2012 London Olympics, motorcycling would be an Olympic sport, with two categories, speed and motocross, and they dreamed of duels between Lorenzo, Rossi, Checa, Torronteras, Pastrana, and so on.

As you can see, the day has been very eventful, and no doubt more than one piece of news has made someone’s phone smoke, especially if they were foreign and unfamiliar with the healthy Spanish custom of playing these little pranks.