Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Wo r ld C h a IT1p io n s h ip R o a d R a c e S e ri e s R o u n d 1 5 : Austral ian G r a n d Prix BRIEFLY••• Newl y cro wned 125cc W orld Champion D an i Pedrosa had barely 15 minutes on the track 10 his new position before crashing heavily in Friday 's fi rst session of free training. The 18-year-old Spanish Telefonica MoviStar Honda nder wa s on his eigh th lap, an ou t lap, and was no t at rac ing speed w hen his foot rep ortedly slipped off the footrest (others th oug ht he had seizedl as he came over the hill betwee n Lukey Height s and the following MG hairpin . The bike turned abruptly off the track and hit the tire barrier hard; Pedrosa escape d that fate but landed heavily, incurring fract ures in both ankles as well as breaking his heel bone. The injur ies req uired almos t immediat e surgery, and he was helico ptered to M elbourne for a fou r-hour opera tion . receiving tw o sc rews in his right foot . It will be thr ee or four mont hs before he will be able to rid e a mot orcycle again. There ' s never a good time to break both ankles, but it is better to do it a week after tying up the champio nship than a wee k before. Anoth er accident on the first day highlighted weak nesses in the Phillip Island medic al facilit ies. Nobu Aoki was put of f line at the looping turn tw o when he came upon Noriyuki Haqa' s Aprilia. on line but at low speed 0'; an out lap. He crashed and afterward complained of pain in his neck . Doctors prud ently insist ed on precautio nary X-rays. but the antiquated equipment at the track is not good enough to prov ide suffi c ientl y high· re solut io n Imag e s. W ith t he helicopter already engaged transporting Pedrosa, the angry Proton KR rider had to be transferre d by road ' to the hosp ital in Dandenong, almos t two hours away . The road tim e, plus the waiting. meant Aoki missed the first qualifying session that afternoon. Doctors took det ailed X-rays, plus a CAT scan to check for soft tis sue damage in the neck. and thankfully the results wer e negative . Wh ich so mehow only made A oki even angrier. The interminable Valentino Rossi contract situation - described by rival Max Biaggi as "the never-ending story' - came no closer to resolu tion in Austra lia. Not in public. anyway. Instead a new factor emerged: Ducati is back in the picture. Asked the pos ition at the prerace press conference. Rossi said: "We gave our offer to Honda in Malaysia .' They ex pe ct ed an ans wer th is wee kend, but instead. • Honda has asked for a few mor e days. ' W as Ducati back in the frame? " Yes. Maybe it' s possible ." The long delays had not been a que stion of money . he conti nued. " If you have two or three hours, then maybe we can talk about the other problem s. The other riders say they are all waitin g for me. and I am sorry - very, very sorry. But I need to take my time to make my decision. I don' t know why everybody else is waiting. Maybe somebody wants my bike . But that's not my problem. " Ducati team boss livio Suppa responded, in an exclusive interview: " Fir st. I have to thank V alent ino for talking abo ut Ducati. It is good advert ising for us. We have been talking with ll.uisl d'Antin about a second team . That wou ld.be like GS E in World Superbikes . The bikes would be one-year -old - but I think they are still quite good bikes ." Asked if Ducati Co rse had the capacity to con struc t and support a t hird fact ory -level bik e if Ro ssi did j oin (Ca plro sst and BayliSS are already on strengthl , Suppa said: " It would be difficult. But not impossi ble. ' If Rossi does shift to Ducati. it might be with an indepen dent team of his own. Marlboro has already indicated that it is not in the market for Rossi to join its factory squad . As a result, the who-goes -where speculation continued. But some things we re clearly closer to being settled . with five of the six Honda seat s more or less clear. Nicky Hay d en stays with the fact ory Repsol team, Max Biaggi with Pons Honda. His curre nt teammate Tohru Ukawa is thought to be gone, and his place is likely to be take n by curr ent Pramac rider M akoto Tamada. who will stay on Bridgest one tires. Sete Gibernau will stay with the Gr esini team afte r recent ly Signing a new three -year Telefonica deal. The secon d nder is likely to be Colin Edwards. aft er his disillusioning year with Ap rilia. Ro ssi might be the sixth Honda rider. If he goes . Carl os Checa is thought to be a strong candidate for the ride. in spite of an exist ing Yamaha cont ract. It is far from clear who will ride the Italian triples . with current secon d rider Noriyuki Haga also not expected to stay on. Jeremy McWilliams is a strong possibility • he has long links with Apri lia after racing its 500 V-t win as well as 250 s. But he is happy with the Proton team. if not the current V-five ' s perf ormance. and the promise of a big technical upgrade next year might persuade him to stay. Garry McCoy is anot her good candidate, for he will definitely not stay with Kawasaki. Shiny a N akano is another name on the Aprilia list . as is O liv ier Jacque. Kawasaki is expected to retain Andrew Pitt to ride along side curren t test rider A nd reas Hof mann. Bo t h Suzuki riders . Ke nny Robert s Jr. and Joh n Hopkins. are contracted for next season and share stro ng hopes of a major technical upgrade from the troublesome V -four. Yamaha might. of course, get Rossi and would be happy to swap Checa for the champion. Marco Melandri will stay in place. and probably also Alex Barros. but not Jacque. Proto n mayor may not keep McW illiams , and strong rumors sugges t that the second bike will go to Kurti s Robert s. M uch of the above might be true. Or false. And it all needs Rossi to decide before it can be tes ted . W ell-tr avelled technical guru Warren Willi ....g (ex-Yamaha, ex-Suzuki and now all but ex -KTM l was in the paddock in Aust ralia . and his name was linked with a move to jo in Aprilia. to help get its MotoGP project back on track . ' W e have had cont act. ' admitt ed Apri lia race chief Jan W itteveen. while Wi lling said: ' 1have spoken to Aprilia and some other people . But at the moment I have two years of a threeyear co nt ract with KTM still to run. so it's no t an urgent problem .' W illi ng was take n on by the Au strian co mpany to devel op its pro po sed V -four MotoGP racer. but the project was cancelled in July . Aprilia clearly need some help . The three -cylinde r machine . ridden by Edwards and Haga. has failed to fulfill its early promise as the season has worn on, running into bad tire chatter problems as well as complex issues of unpredict ability from the fly-by-wire throttle system. The chatter. according to raci ng chief Jan Witt eve en, Is • not a chassis iss ue. It' s to do with the engine . W e know how to make it bett er and how t o make it wo rse. and we will fix it. But it' s hard to do from race to race. especta lly with three In a row like this.' Edwards enlarged on the topic . saying that any number of suspension and chassis changes had failed to improve the situation . ' 1think it's more so mething fundamental in the engine · I think cranks haft we ight has sornethmq to do with it. ' On the to pic of fly by wire , Edward s told press men: ' To me, they need to go back to a much more primitive sta te. Fly by wire is the fut ure, maybe in three or five years' time, when It' s been perfected . But it's de finite ly no t been perfected now.' F1 engineers fro m Coswort h had had a big input on the bike, but Edwards said: "Ca rs and bikes are co mpletely diff erent wo rlds. W e need to get back to a more moto rcycle fee ling.' On e year ago , Phillip Island marked the last public appea rance of Barry Sheene . This year. the paddock see med somew hat empty wit hout him. The life of the 1975 and 1976 W orld Champion was celebrat ed in many ways. On Thursday . more than 700 motor cycles joine d a mass ride from upstate V ictoria. culminating in a lap of the circuit. Special commemorative "Number Seven" pins were on sale · a limited edition , and M ick Doohan was schedu led to do a t ribut e lap on Barry ' s class ic-racer M anx Norton on race day. Proceeds from the ride-out and pin sales we nt to CanTee n. an Australian cha ri ty for young peop le liVing with cance r. Sheene died after a battl e against cancer in March this year. back. Ha yden and Ukawa h a d a little collision as the y started t h e last la p, which put th e Japanese ri der out of touch . H a y d en passed Gi bernau out of Siberia and c r o sse d the line th ree h u ndredths a hea d of the Span ia rd , with U kawa another t wo ten th s away. J ac q ue and Nana ko w ere n ext , sti ll loc ked toget her; Che ca had re j o i ned b eh ind them and was los ing g rou n d at th e end . Not fast enough , h ow e ver , for R ob erts , who had a lonely race after a good start t o claim h is be st fin ish ofthe yea r. " I h ad some p robl ems, but th ey 're n ot w orth tal k in g abou t , b e cau se it's n o t con st ruct ive," h e said . The y a re likely t o have in clud ed the f am i l ia r erratic re s p o n se s o f the fly- by- wire th rottl e , which had tipped h im o ff in th e wet m orning warm- u p se ssio n. H e w a s unimpressed by f inis hi n g in t he t op 10 . " We n e ed p eople to crash in front of us for th at. I still b elieve I am cepe ble of winning t hese races , and S uzu ki is , t oo , if we ca n b u ild a bike that i s e q u a l to t he ones u p f ro n t," he sa id , A great th r e e - w a y scr a p b ehind , among McWilliam s , Ho p k i n s a n d McCoy , had become a four-w ay as Tamada closed up fro m b eh in d , with the Honda rider moving th rough to take 10th one seco n d ahea d o f McWili iams _ Eng ine management glitches that ha d th e V -five pushi ng with th e throttl e cl ose d in the ea r ly laps ha d a lmost put McWilli ams into t he pit. but they cl e are d on lap three, " L u c k ily I didn 't ski t tle a ny body. It's good t o have a race for t he p oints agai n : he said . Hi s riva ls were less a p p reciativ e of his hard- ri ding style. H o p k in s . th re e se con ds b e hi n d at t h e e n d, sa id : " M c W i ll ia m s i s an evi l li t t le ra scal. S ome of his m ov es w e r e p re tty Ec kl K awa sa k i has been testing not only a new lighter·crankshaft engine, but also a European-built chass is, with a view to persuading the factory to up the speed of development of the lacklust er Ninja racer. The chassis was put together by ex·G P racer Eskil Suter , who also developed the Foggy Petr onas Superbike. Another development for next year is expected to be to reverse the direction of rotation of the cranksha ft. One co mplaint of the team about the factory. voiced by a disillu sion ed Garry McCoy at Motegi, wa s that changes they have asked for have not only been very minor . but also very slow in coming. The team hope to follow Fl patt erns in taking development out o f the Japanese factory 's hands and inst ead us ing the faster responses from the extensive racing engineering facilities available in Europe. Unusually b e n ign wea th er throughout practice turned nas ty on race morning , reinfo rcing Phillip Island's reputation as the As sen of the South. Race moming warm-up was run in streaming rain and in the M o toG P cla ss wa s both revealing and enterta ining . If you enjoy watch ing road racing's greatest hero es falling off. The bright sparks were Rossi and Hayden, first and third respectively in lap times. Flick ering flames came from Bayliss, who fell twice but still ended up secand, and Biaggi, who was faste st earlier on but also fell to end up fourth . Rid ers were sli theri ng off everywhere . Barr o s fell at M G before even co mpleting a lap. and the domino effe ct cont inued. Gibernau repeated his turn one tumb le with a long and grace ful slide. Aoki slipped off the Proton ; Robert s and M elandri both dropped it unde r braking for MG Hairpin; the Aprilias of Edwards and Haga went down in almost ident ical crashes on consecutive laps in the same spot. Ni ne out of 24 went dow n, with a total of 10 crashes . Nobody was hurt, which just ified the amuseme nt of those wat ching in dry co mfort on TV screens. Wet crashes are also generally much slower than those in the dry . But deep down crashing is never really funny. and there was a nervous atmo sphere as the big races approached and the rain showed no sign of letting up. h eavy : h e said. But h e was s mili ng after managin g to o u t f o x McCoy on t h e last lap, t h e Australia n se riously short of rear ti re t ra c t io n . b ut claiming t h e Kawasaki 's best dry - w e a t h er fin ish all the same . Seven second s back , No riyuki Haga had finally caugh t and p a ssed Andr ew Pi t t' s K a w a s a k i , t he Au stralian ba ttling without a clu tch . H e narro w ly held o ff a lacklus te r E d w a rd s, clea rly tiring of th e Aprilia 's manifold problems as he eyes a move to Honda next year. B ia gg i was 17th , pa s sing a troubled Nob uatsu Aoki towa rd th e en d . The Ja pa nese ri de r ' s painful n e c k c a u sed him to hyp erv ent i late mid race, and he wa s a lap adrift and close to c ollap se at the finis h , his le ft arm numb . W ith R o s s i on 332, G i b e rn a u secu re d second overa ll on 257 . B ieq g i i s s a fe in th i rd on 2 15 , and C api ro ssi fo u rth o n 16 1 . Then c o m e th e la st r em ain in g d oubts - Ha yd en fifth o n 130 , t he n Ukawa on 1 2 3 , B a yliss 1 19 ari d Checa 112. 14 OCTOBER 29 , 2003' e y e I e n e vv s CN

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