Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128125
Sefe Gibemau N • InJury. Each time, the breakthrough turned into a blind alley instead. On the rebound, he switched to Suzuki for 200 I, joining the title-winning team. Just in time for Suzuki to have a bad year of its own. Bad luck, hand in hand with good. As a result, Gibernau has come in for some criticism and belittlement inside Spain, seeming to fail to fulfill his apparent potential. That, he insists, merely strengthened the resolve of the grandson of Don Paco Bulto, founder of the Bultaco empire. Gibernau grew up with motorcycles - his father ran the Bultaco racing team - and first raced at 17. In 1991, he won national 125cl: titles, in 1992 he made a wild card GP debut with the official Catalan European Championship 250cc team - only for their sponsor to pull out, leaving him high and dry. From 1993, he raced for Kenny Roberts in the Ducados Spanish Open series (his teammate was Roberts Jr.), with strong results mixed with the usual ups and downs. By MICHAEL SCOTT PHOTOS BY GOLD & GOOSE t was the best of times, and the worst of times. The Dickensian phrase could apply to few riders IT better than Sete Gibernau. Scion of a revered Spanish motorcycling family, though now living "about an hour from Lausanne," the 28-year-old Gibernau has been privileged several times in his racing career. He has also been blighted by rotten luck and worse timing. Privilege and disadvantage seem to go hand in hand for Sete. No wonder, then, that when his first long-awaited race victory came, at home in Spain in front of 122,000 surprised but dutifully ecstatic countrymen, he turned a somersault in the air to celebrate. There'd been more than a few career somersaults on the way. Several times in a Grand Prix career that started in 1996, Sete has been taken into top factory teams at the expense of another rider, usually through 42 OCTOBER 10,2001 • I: U I: •• n e c _ s In 1996, he moved to GPs on a private Honda 250; and by season's end was racing for Wayne Rainey in place of the reluctant Tetsuya Harada on the factory Yamaha 250. He claimed a first top 10 at Rio, and was then sent home - until Loris Capirossi unexpectedly jumped ship, and Gibernau was hastily drafted in to the 500cc team at the last minute. He got a best of sixth, but then found himself unemployed. The next unexpected call came from HRC. Their factory V-twin rider Takuma Aoki had been crippled in a pre-season testing crash. Gibernau, already something of a super-sub, was the man they turned to. He put the twin on the rostrum, and was expecting more of the same in '99. Until, three races in, five-time champion Mick Doohan had the crash that ended his career. Once again, Gibemau was in the right place at the right time, and he was rather impressive on the V-four NSR, on the rostrum in his second race, and third again at Assen a few weeks later. An injury in Britain kept him out of the limelight until the end of the year, with his best-so-far second in South Africa. Things were looking good. But they went bad. _ Last year is best forgotten. All three Repsol HRC teamsters - Alex CriviIle, Tadayuki Okada and Gibernau - had a bad time, though Criville did pull one race win out of the bag. Gibernau expected something better with the switch to Suzuki in 2001. Until he got to Valencia, it seemed like more of the same. Gibernau is a very lucid and intelligent rider, multi-lingual and with a cultivated manner. He speaks fluent English, and has something of a gift for explanation. Here is what he said... "My career has been a pretty peculiar one... very different from everyone else. I was on the podium after my second race on the Honda V-four. Everything was real good. But it didn't stay that way. I've been through so many changes, moves and situations. "I've been there, but l haven't been there. I've seen success arriving, but I haven't had it as mine. And I've ended up in the shit again. To be honest, nothing now really takes me out of my nerves. "I did a real good year with Kenny's team in the Ducados series, Junior and myself. 1 was ready to jump into the World Championship, but that didn't happen. I had to stay in Spain because things just didn't go our way. All the other guys from my generation were at the GPs, and I had to just stay and wait for my opportunity. Which never actually came. "So in '96, I just wanted to know if I was going to be something in racing. 1jumped on whatever they gave me to be in the World Championship, because it's the only place where people are going to see you. I didn't have the best team in the world, and not the best tires [he rode a privateer Axo Honda]. I just rode as hard as I could, hoping that some day somebody would see what I was doing. "Halfway through the year, Wayne Rainey thought I was doing good. And when he got the problem with Tetsuya, they decided to put me on the bike, and we got some interesting results. "I started GP racing that year with no experience - 1 didn't even know the tracks. And the next year, 1997, I was in the number-one Yamaha factory team. At the time, you think you are ready for it, but you're not even close to being ready. That's the biggest responsibility a rider can have: to develop and perform for a factory like Yamaha on a 500. I was a complete kid, with no experience or anything. And I reckon that year for me was good. I was close to Abe at all the races.