Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

to I Ith, a tenth of a second in front of Kawasaki 's Shinya Nakano, whom he passed in the last turn but wasn't able to hold off at the line . Suzuki's John Hopkins abused his rear Bridge sto ne , making up for early mistakes and finished 13th. " I was getting a bit of a vibration in the rear when it was sliding, and it was kind of freaking me out, going into the fast righthanders and having it step out," he said. Teammate Kenny Roberts Jr. was a nonfinisher with an early electrical problem. The other nonfinishers were Kawasaki's Alex Hoffman, who crashed for the second time this weekend o n the A lex Barros (4) fou ght t h rough from a poor s tart to fini s h fourth afte r passing h is te amma te Nicky Hayden (69) , The Ral:e: The Arnertcema The largest contingent of Americans in the premier class of Grand Prix racing was reduced by one by Friday lunch time. By then, Proton KR's Kurtis Roberts was on his way home, his still-injured shoulder not ready for the rigors of racing . That cut the number from five to four, with Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden (right) leading the charge in the season-opening South African Grand Prix. Hayden was away fourth and on the tail of the lead trio when he began to lose touch. It didn't surprise him, since he hadn't been able to match their speed during qualifying. Once the front-runners - Valentino Rossi, Max Biaggi, Sete Gibernau - picked up the pace , Hayden was left behind. "Th ey were just faster than I could go , to be honest with you ," Hayden said. There were places Hayden would lose time and nowhere to make up time. "It was like I'd be even pretty much everywhere, and there was about two spots where I would just lose about half a bikelength, next spot would be maybe a bikelength , and the other spots I was just even," he said. "I wasn't good enough to make up any time . I coul d make it up a little time on the brakes in a cou ple of corners. Got in a bit hot and ran w ide a couple o f laps. Just watched them disappea r pretty much. It was painful." In the morning warm-up he 'd gone as fast as he co uld, lapping at I :34. His best in the race was a I:33.969 . The fastest lap of the race was Biaggis I:33.208 , done on the ' final lap. "I didn't expect them to do 33.15," Hayden said. " I thought mid- to high 33s. I knew it was going to be tough after this morning." Alex Barros, Hayden's Brazilian teammate, passed him at the midpoin t of the 28-lap race. That put him to fifth, where he'd stay despi te a last- minute thrust by Marlboro Ducati's loris Capirossi. " I mean, right to the very end, last lap I had plus .4, so I 16 A PRIL 28,2004 • CYCLE NEWS wasn' t really any hold ing back . I coul d hear Capirossi the last lap on the D ucati,' Hayde n said. At the end of the day, he'd gotten fifth. "It could have been a lot worse. I lea rned a few things watching them, but watching them go away as a racer was just hard to do. I didn't want to do anything stupid early, so I just tried to be smart, learn some stuff, hang on to the finish." Colin Edwards was the next American, crossing the line in seventh after be ing passed by Capirossi. From the start of the race he was on foreign soil, his Telefonica MoviStar Honda chattering at the front like never before. It kept him from making a move on Hayden, whom he trailed early in the race before being passed on the 12th lap by Barros . "Just incredible," Edwards said. "It was all I could do just to stay with N icky [Hayden] . Riding out of my skin just to stay there." Capirossi came at him late , and Edwards d id all he could to hold him back . "I had a knife in my mouth and a f'&%ing bandanna on my head. I was trying all I could do ," Edwards said. Capirossi came by on the 24th o f 28 laps, and his position would be secure. The team now has tw o weeks to find a so lution be fore the Spanish GP at Jerez. "Obviously, it doesn't turn very well when t he fro nt tire 's in the air," Edwards said. "I don 't know. There's no explanation . The tires were perfectly balanced. No pro blem. Yesterday everything was perfect . We changed nothing. Same tires , same everything, same bike . Morning warm-u p was good. We did n't really have much of a problem this morning. Uke I said, not a chatter, but bumps and rough. That's easy. But you look on the computer. Whereas the chatter yesterday would be little bits , today it just started miles before it, lots bigger, and ended miles after it. It's like you 're not even looking at the same bike. " Tire temperature was n't also not an issue. "There's nothing we can point to . The only thing I could tell you is we went three-quarters of a second slower t han yesterday, maybe a sec o nd ." Edwards was ce rtai n the tearn would solve the problem , but at the moment t hey were left scratching thei r heads. The result wa s much better than last year's. His race ended seconds after it began, Edward s skidding acr oss the 4 0 t h Anniver sary gras s after a start line incident took him out of the race. "That's the way it goes. It's the South African blues , last year to this year" he said. The Team Suzuki Americans qualified next to each other on the fourth row, not great, but respectable and confident there was more in it. By the end of the day, there were more questions than answers. John Hopkins finished 13th after some elbow-banging with Ruben Xaus, and Kenny Roberts Jr. retired with electrical problems on the seventh lap. "I just didn't want to back down from that little fight," Hopkins said of his run- in with Xaus . "We got into tum four, went into five, I lost a couple of positions and then just started making stupid mistakes, trying to get him back , running wide." The dust-up cost him time that he tried to make up on a soft tire. There was confidence in its durability, had he not had to make up for lost time. With speed came trouble, and there was no drive late. "We were having to use it really hard in the beginning of the race , making up for the mistakes that I made," he said. later he'd get caught up in a battle with Carlos Checa and Shinya Nakano, then Makoto Tamada briefly joined in before playing through. "Halfway through the race I just started to ge t a little bit of a vibrati on in the rear, and then I was really struggli ng getting it into the corner," he said. "I t was com ing around on me . I pulled enough of a distance over [froy] Bayliss." Not happy with 13th, Hopkins to ld himself it was "going to be our worst posi tion we're going to finish t his year. So here on out, let's get the points and just go ." Ro be rts Jr. didn't e laborate o n his electrical pr oblems, preferring to emphasize the positive in his first race with crew chief Erv Kanemoto. Up to seventh on the second lap, he was down to ninth when forced to pit. Des pite that, he said, "We had a good weekend. The closest I've been to the top machines without having the fear of God . The tearn worked well , and Erv's [Kanemoto] a t remendou s help. " Next would be the Spanish GP at Jerez in two weeks time, followed by a two-day test where he expects to get new engine parts . "We're looking forward to Jerez because of the altitude," he said. "The bike w orks better there and there's not so many areas that you have to use the sam e gear t hat' s not in the same rpm range."

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