Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Barros (4), Blaggl (3) and Tohru Ukawa perform synchronized wheelles. La Chapelle, a downhill right. Proton Team KR's Nobuatsu Aoki suffered an engine failure in his last appearance on the KR-3 two-stroke triple. The team plans to race the new V-five in Mugello in two weeks. First out in the wet was Pramac Honda Pons' Makoto Tamada, while well back in the field, with Hopkins next to fall. Then Fuchs Kawasaki's Andrew Pitt went down. Team Repsol Telefonica MoviStar's Toni Elias won his second 250cc Grand Prix in a row, taking the lead from Frenchman Randy de Puniet on the 15th of 26 laps and easing away to win by 3.740 seconds. Fortuna Honda's Roberto Rolfo got the best of three others to take the final podium spot on the final lap, passing Team Repsol Telefonica MoviStar's Fonsi Nieto. In quick order, Yamaha Kurz's Naoki Matsudo and Campetella Racing's Sylvain Guintoli crossed the line in fifth and sixth, respectively. The championship closed up with Elias now five points down on Poggiali, 58 to 63, with de. Puniet and Rolfo tied at 56. Telefonica MoviStar Junior Team's Dani Pedrosa split from the 125cc pack at the start, never to be headed, and won his second GP of the year, this time by 2.337 seconds. Behind the young Spaniard was a proper fight, three riders going at it until a few corner's from the end when Racing World's Alex De Angelis crashed while chasing the pair just in front. The runner-up spot went to Safilo-Oxydo-LCR's Lucio Cecchinel10 with Team Scot's Andrea Dovizioso third, less than a tenth of a second back. Pedrosa broke away from a tie with Cecchinello to take sole control of the championship lead with 71 points, after four of 16 rounds, five better than the Italian. Steve Jenkner, eighth today, is third with 60. MotoGP The FIM pretended the fiTSt 15 laps didn't happen. No results were issued, neither was a lap chart. Under the new rules, the race would be whatever was remaining, after an interval to change tires, in this case 13 laps. That said, Rossi was streaming away when he had no chojce but to raise his hand and bring an end to the race. Le Mans has the worst surface in Grand Prix racing, according to the riders, and racing in the rain on worn asphalt with slicks would have been calamitous. The grid was reset from the order at the end of the 15th lap, with Rossi on the pole, then Barros, Ukawa and Biaggi. Ukawa and Biaggi wouldn't make the line, Ukawa helping to push his Honda RC-211 V back to his pit box from his grid position for a suspension fix, Biaggi taking one warmup lap before pitting for a tire swap. Gibernau had chosen rain tires but Kenny Roberts Jr. is one of a majority to endorse the FIM's new wet weather MotoGP rules. So much does he like the notion of shootouts that he named the final round of last year's AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship at Virginia International Raceway as one of his favorite races. "The best AMA race I watched was the last one last year," Roberts Jr. said, "the one with four restarts. You had grip for six laps. You had bikes up there that weren't competitive. If they could do that for us, it'd be awesome." Roberts Jr. said the new format was better for spectators and easier to understand. Plus it makes for better racing than the previous aggregate time solution. "It's 13 laps. Just go for it," he said. Race winner Sete Gibemau was another supporter. "I think that that was very nice," Gibemau said. "I think that maybe Valentino [Rossi] had a little bit of disadvantage on that side. Like I say, I think there are many ideas we can talk about. At the end of a championship not many races happen like this. Maybe today it was Valentino that was pretty sure had the worst part of it. but maybe he has the best part of it the next time. There's something we can all agree on. We will just think to do whatever is best for the championship, and we've got to understand that the crowd needs to understand also the results. And that you're not trying on the bike to understand, 'Okay, if I finish this, this will be half points what I had before.' I think it's easier for everyone to understand if it's this way. I maybe it was better for me today, and one other time it's worse for me. Whatever the situation is, it's never the perfect situation, but we just have to adapt to what we have. If we all agree on one thing, I think we have to keep for that for the best for everyone." Repsol Honda's Valentino Rossi said the new start system was just part of the ongoing dialogue between the riders and the F1M. "Because from South Africa all the riders speak with Carmela [Ezpeleta, the head of Doma], with [rider safety rep Franco] Uncini and with the FIM, and the situation change," Rossi said. "Carmela [Ezpeleta] say for us is better for the show make only the result of the second heat 100 percent without the time of the first heat. We say, 'But we need to move the wall in Jerez, we need to move the wall in the first comer. and we need to move here.' We need to make some modifications to all the circuits for the safety. So at the end I think is good, if next year we arrive in Jerez and have the wall more far away. Arrive here and have some modify for the safety. We are ready for make the show, but we need safety in the track. I think like this. If Carmela and FIM already say yes, but if situation change." Third-place finisher Alex Barros remembered winning a race on aggregate time, and how it affected his race strategy: "I win the race like that in the past, have three-second advantage, so just follow the guy. Where the guy is, he can't win the race. So I don't need to push_ I just need to use my experience in the difference. But I think in the 1V the people don't understand so well which position you are. To finish like that I think is more easy for everybody to understand. Like Valentino [Rossi] said, the first thing to do this system is for safety. And it still works. Today everything worked very perfect_ The flags on the track, Valentino lift the hand in the very correct moment. Start the race with two laps warm-up is everybody agrees is you can have more understanding of what the track situation is, and you make more show. I think everybody have very fun to race that. In the end everybody have success." had second thoughts on the grid. "The thing is, it rained so hard that I doubted it was going to dry out to where we couJd use intermediates, but we are talking with Valentino [Rossi] and Alex (Barros] that in the grid we saw some guys with some cut slicks, and we were like, 'Oh man, maybe that's correct,''' Gibernau said. Barros was away first, then Gibernau and Rossi, the trio setting an unmatchable pace that quickly gapped the field. Gibernau made his first move on the seventh lap, with Barros taking it back_ Then Rossi attacked Gibernau with the same outcome; Rossi rebuffed. It wasn't until the ninth lap that the order changed - Gibemau by Barros in the Blue Esses, Rossi by the Brazilian two turns from the end. From there Barros had the best seat in the house, a consolation for not being able to mount a challenge. "In the end Sete [Gibernau] and Valentino [Rossi] pass me, take some advantage," Barros said. "I try to take it back, but in the last laps I can't. I have maybe not enough contact in the back tire like these guys." As an enthusiast, Barros enjoyed the view, "but I'd rather participate this time. I say, 'Ah, I want to stay there.''' The track had two very different characteristics, one playing to Rossi, one to Gibernau. "This racetrack, the hardest thing was to understand the difference between one part and the other part of the track," Gibernau said. cue I e "Because there was one part of the track where the asphalt's new that it's okay in the rain. There's another part where you couldn't even touch the throttle. Maybe with a moped you could have gone faster: Rossi took the lead on the 11 th lap, holding it until the final lap when Gibernau made his move. Then Rossi came by on the inside of one of the final rights, his momentum carrying him wide, as Gibernau retook the spot. The final attack came in the final corner, a tight right-hander, with the same result - Rossi briefly in front, only to run wide off the track and into the gravel. "Valentino (Rossi] in the dry was the strongest, and we would have battled, myself and Alex [Barros], maybe for a second position if Valentino didn't do any mistake, which we never know," Gibernau said. "It looked like he was very strong. In the wet he also proved again, as Alex did, both of them were very strong in the wet and the dry. I think it's a good podium with three riders that proved to be strong in the dry and the wet." Rossi was philosophical in defeat. "Maybe today for us is more difficult to Jose thjs race than win," he said. "I'm not angry because anyway on the dry condition if it don't rain, it's possible I win the race: Jacque passed McWilliams on the fifth lap to take over fourth then sped away, uncontested to his best finish ever in MotoGP at the front of a slightly spread out group of five rid- a e _ 50 • JUNE 4, 2003 23

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