P128
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
P
erhaps I'd better begin by
apologizing. Not sure yet
what for, but it seems the
right thing to do.
This mood of humility was
triggered by Yamaha at the
Austrian GP. After their factory
riders' worst-yet qualifying of an
increasingly difficult season for
Yamaha and on the eve of their
worst-yet race results, the big
wigs of the crossed tuning forks
brigade convened an extraordi-
nary but not quite unprecedent-
ed press briefing, with the sole
purpose of saying sorry. Sorry
to the riders, sorry to the media.
In fact, just sorry to everybody,
really.
This was a very Yamaha ac-
tion—the Japanese company
with a streak of humanity. And
there was a sort of precedent,
back in 2001, when Yamaha's
Nakajima owned up to there
being some design flaws in their
final two-stroke, upon which
Max Biaggi was getting seriously
kicked by Rossi on a Honda.
Biaggi had gone public, blam-
ing what he called "structural
problems" in the chassis for a
series of crashes. Yamaha was
responding to this criticism, and
accepting at least some of the
blame.
This time round, it was a quite
voluntary act of humiliation. A
public face-stuffing of humble
pie in which the delegates' glut-
tony was rather alarming.
The apology was not mis-
APOLOGY
