Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Change? What Change? UJ' 8-- - - - AW Award 2004 co ... ) toGP Tes t o ~ o • co To the victor go the spoils: Valentino Rossi and his new car. A II change at MotoGP city ended up as /""\r,o change at Catalunya today, when Valentino Rossi claimed first blood in the first formal co mpetition of the year - and answered all the questions about whether he and his ex-Honda crew could get the M I Yamaha to the point of being competitive with the Ho ndas and Ducatis. Yes, they can . And though he was only ahe ad by a few hu ndredths of a second, and only over one lap, t he writing is clearly on the wall. Ensconced on his new Gauloises Yamaha, using the new "grow le r" eng ine, Rossi shaded his ex-Honda rivals to set the fastest time in a special. televised 4O-minute "o ffic ial practice" session, to win a BMW Z4 sports car. For almost all riders, that was the fastest sess ion of three rain-hit days. "I sincerely didn't expect that," he said later. ':A earlier tests th ree Honda riders t were faster than me , and I didn't expect to be able to beat them here." His time , a second under his 2003 Honda lap record, was still slower than his po le time of last year. But in far-Irorn -favorable conditions that time, the proximity of his closest rivals... and a staggering increase all around in top speeds, was clear proof that the MotoGP technical equation has had a significant boost for 2004. So, too, has much of the cornpetition: Ap rilia lagged ; riders jeremy McWilliams and Shane Byrne are still on last year's bike ; and also Proton, with a new engine far from perfect and a new chassis still barely past the shakedown stage, has only Nobu Aoki riding (Kurtis Roberts is injured) . But last year's lame duck Suzuki has taken a significant step forward. Kenny Roberts Jr. was sixth -fastest in the 40minute timed runs , less than half a second down on Rossi, and seventhfastest in the overall timed sess ions. Kawasaki, with a neat new bike , also closed the gap , with new rider Shinya Nakano 13th in the televised test, barely a second 0(( Rossi's time. All riders faced the same problems at the 2.93-mile Catalunya GP circuit at Montmelo outside Barcelona, where 30,000 fans turned up to see the Sunday gallops . The first day was cut short by rain, the second a complete washout. Only o n Sunday did the sun make an appearance, but by then the surrounding mountains had a fresh coating of snow, and it was still very cold. The usual suspects w ere up front - Col in Edwards and Sete Gibe m au (both Telefon ica MoviStar Hon da) were less than a tenth slower tha n Rossi, with Marlboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi another two tenths down on them. Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayde n was a close fifth, then Roberts, and impressive Ruben Xaus (d' Antin Ducat i Desmosedici) seventh , ahead of Fortuna Yamaha's Carlos Checa, the only other M I rider to have the same special gruff re timed engine as RossI. Fortuna Yamaha's Marco Melandri w as tenth, then Makoto Tamada, Max Biaggi (both Camel Honda), d'Antin Ducati's Ne il Hodgson, and then the two Kawasakis of Shinya Nakano and Alex Hofmann. Then came Byrne , Troy Bayliss, test-riders Shinichi Car Racing With World Superbike? Rumo rs o f a car race being ru n alo ngside the Worl d Supe rb ike race at Misano in Ita ly were blowing aro und at the Australian ro und at Phillip Island on the weekend , wit h FGSpo rt CEO Pao lo Flammini se tting the record straight in one res pect at least. "The re will not be a race, but a demonstration of the new Superstars class ." Flammini said. "We are devel oping a new champi onship for touring cars, but o n a different philosophy from the nonmal touring car way - until now. It is the Superbike philosophy - big power, big show and acceptable low costs. These cars will have up to SOOOcc V· eight engines. So the re will be BMW M5s, Audi RS6s, jaguar 5-type Turbos, poss ibly Mercedes 55s . That sort of car, but not with too sophisticated a level of tun ing - that is, with tun ing that is enough to have a powerful engine. not too much electronic devices - so 6 the ca rs w ill be very spectacular in th e way th ey w ill ride on the t rack, and it will not be too ex pensive. It w ill be so meth ing like Supe rb ike on four wheels. More t han the demo nst ration at Imola last year - and we sho uld have the jaguar and BMW at least ." When asked if the re would be factory involvement from the likes of jaguar and BMW, Flammini stated: ':At t he moment the philosophy of the cham pionship is that it should be for teams. When manufacturers come into the scene. things become very expensive. so we see this as a cham pionship for teams and something for the spectators to have fun , watching th is competition. The program is that in 2004 there will be a national trophy in Ita ly, to have experience and make the regulations, to check what needs finetuning , but in 2005 we foresee to have an international series." APRil 7, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Itoh (Ho nda) and Gregorio Lavilla (Suzuki). Suzuki's john Hopkins was 20th in his first ride since breaking both ankles in a supercross crash in January. Then came Aok i, Yamaha's Norick Abe, McWilliams and test rider Marcellini Lucchi (bo th Aprilia), w ith Fabrizio (WCM) and Vittorio Guareschi (Ducati test rider) rounding out the list. One loser of the afternoon was Repsol Honda's Alex Barros, who set the early pace, only to be one of five victims of a multiple pileup in the first 10 minutes. It seemed to have been triggered by McWilliams' Aprilia, as he lost the front and crashed on the downhill hairpin as they dropped off the hill fo r the first time. Before he could pick himself up , four more bikes followed suit: both factory Ducatis (Bayliss and Capirossi), The bike feels heavy changing direction, and though we tried many th ings, noth ing worked. I am confident we can improve." And a third was Bayliss, 17th overall while Neil Hodgson was 13th on last year 's Ducati. ':A this stage of the year I'd rather focus t on working on setup than rushing round trying to do fast laps," Bayliss said. "We need time to relax so we can work on fine- tuning the setup." The new Ducati is clearly faster than the old and has improved since its first disappointing appearance, but there is obviously a lot of work to do yet . " I think we are only at about 70 percent," said D ucati Corse boss Claudio Domenicali. The MotoGP riders follow the 250 and 125cc classes (w ho tested earlier at Colin Edwards rode his Telefonica MoviStar Honda to the secondfastest time. C heca and Barros . None were hurt, Barros lucky not to exacerbate his still-painful sho ulder, but wh en he tried again later in the session, his tires went off before he got a chance for a clean lap. He was 14th in that crucial session, but second overall , taking the o ther sessions into time . Another was Biaggi, w ho ended up 12th overall , slowest o f the Honda riders. ':A ea rlie r te sts I was able to find the sett tings in th ree laps," Biaggi said. "Here, no . The logical con clusion, tha t ther e cou ld be co mbined car and Worl d Superbike meet ings from now on , was affirmed as a possibility by Flammini, a controversial plan to say the least. "We are studyi ng w hether o r not we can have car and bike racing on the same track at the same weekend," he said. "We need to e nsure that t he track is suitable both for cars and bikes , in terms o f safety. Tha t is the only issue . In theory that package is very attractive, to have beautiful cars and beautiful bikes on one weekend. At the same time we are ma king a very deep analysis if t his is pos sible or not . In some cases there are problems because you cannot have this barrier for cars and this one fo r bikes, o r you need to have a powerful organization o n track, w hen you can substitute w ithin one ho ur all the air fences around the track and put in different barriers. Th is is not a simple exercise. but it is someth ing we would like to do. For the moment we cannot say that we will have a 40th Anniversary Catalunya) to Jerez for two more days of testing this week, wit h the first race of the year on April IB at Welkom in Sout h Africa. Michael Scott combined race ." Reaffinming that there is a desire to co rnbine t his w ith World Supe rb ike rounds, Flamm ini stated , "We w ould not necessarily try it o ut first in Endurance , and maybe eve n it would be better to do at a Superbike race because the Superbike race o rganization is very big. It wo uld be easier to handle something that is complicated with this - 250 mar shals, a circuit that is prepared the best way possible. Ifw e solve the pro blems, it wo uld be the case to have Superbike and Superstars together, rather than Endurance and Superstars. But at the moment this is just a project. Th is pro ject was born in the year 2000 in Octagon, but there were not the con ditions to allow it to happen, but now it is definite ly going ahead. T he only question is whether it can be done together with the bikes. Superstars w illbe a reality this year. Iam sure Maurizio [Flammini] will try to race in it." Gordo n Rit chie

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