MotoGP Academy announces 2006 plans Six young talents hailing from Europe and Asia will be aiming to take their first steps on the path to a successful motorcycle road racing career in Spain this year thanks to the latest plans unveiled by the MotoGP Academy. Newcomers Scott Reading, 13 (Great Britain,) Jonas Folger, 12 (Germany), Takaaki Nakagami, 14 (Japan) and Isaac Viñales, 12 (Spain), have been selected to join the project by MotoGP Academy Director Alberto Puig and Sports Co-ordinator Raul Jara after impressing during private tests at Valencia in December. The quartet of new recruits will join existing students Danny Webb, 15, and Kev Coghlan, 17 (both Great Britain), who enter into their second year with the scheme, and all six riders will contest the 125cc Spanish Championship (CEV). The youngsters will be looking to follow in the footsteps of last year’s success story Bradley Smith, who clinched victory in the final three rounds of the CEV, missing out on the title by a single point, and who will this year make his full debut in the 125cc World Championship. The MotoGP Academy is an initiative created by MotoGP rights holders Dorna Sports to foment and foster young motorcycling talents and to provide them with a platform by which to progress into the MotoGP World Championships. The academy offers the youngsters specialist training in the many facets of the sport, which include such diverse areas as psycho-physical preparation, racecraft and language learning. The riders will begin their programme with four days of preseason training and medical tests at the academy headquarters in Barcelona during the first days of March. They will stay on a temporary basis at the Blume Residence, which boasts excellent facilities and an experienced group of doctors and sport physiotherapists. Their first track test is scheduled for March 27-28 at Albacete, with the opening round of the CEV taking place at the same circuit on May 7. Webb is also pencilled in to make his Grand Prix debut this season and could make as many as three wildcard appearances in the 125cc World Championship.