Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

- -- Round 6 ~~- MOTOGP :Briefly... Jun e 26, 2004 ~ Twln·Pulse to the rescuel Maybe so, for the beleaguered factory Marlboro Ducati team. Thei r revised Twin· Pulse motor was seen in publicfor the first time in more than a year at Assen, after tests following the Catalunyan GP. In the short term, however, the contribution may only have been to add confusion. Everybody was short of time for dry setup; the Ducati men hardly needed the dilemma of choosing between two different types of motorcycle. Both factory riders, loris Capirossi and TroyBayliss, had tested the motor, with the latter commenting:"I did good lap times at Barcelona after 18 laps on a tire. and the tire was cooler and looked better than the tire we used in the race. The new motor is easier to ride . so the lap times come easier without going too much above yourself." Each rider had one new Twin-Pulse availableat Assen alongside their Four-Pulse machines. On the first day of practice, while Capirossi switched almost straight to the new Twin-Pulse, Bayliss spent most o f his time on the "standard" machine, The b a Hle for th ird was intense and went the d istance with Marco Me landri (33) beating Max Biaggi (3) to the checkered flag. nearly had his front wheel taken away for his trouble. Once again. the Docto r was simply unbeatable. " I stayed with Sete easily after the start, but after the tires started sliding, it was not so easy: ' Ro ssi said . "Th e n with two or three laps to go, I made a mistake on the straight after my foot slipped o ff the peg, and Sete got away a little . I tried not to give up , made a very good time on the last lap, and then had a hard battle to overtake Sete. It was a great race between us." The action not too far behind had been hectic. Biaggi had been fifth, heading Melandri and Xaus as they all closed up on Checa. The lap before they caught him, Melandri finally found a way past Biaggi's Ho nda. and he ma naged to get a small gap as his purs ue rs de alt with Ch ec a. That dropped Xa us ou t o f to uch, but Biaggi caug ht up again, and th e two Italians, yo ung and o ld, were hard at it fo r t he rest of the afternoo n, swapping places fr equently, but w ith Me land ri always regai ning the uppe r hand . The next grou p was led by Capirossi from Hayden a nd Edwards . Ho p kins dropping back fro m them after six laps with bad tire sliding problems. This trio caught Checa and Xaus after half distance. but it took three more laps before both Hondas were ahead of Xaus, who finally disposed of Checa du ring the confusio n. Capirossi was now at the back of this group, though he too passed Checa with two laps to go . As Hopkins dropped back, Neil Hodgson got ahead o f Norick Abe after a slow start and was clos ing up. Both were ahead of the Suzuki and closing on Bayliss as the last laps approached - then the Australian suddenly went missing , a failed gearbo x bearing raising fears of fragility for the Twin-Pulse motor. in its first race. "It's a real shame, because there was n't lo ng to go , and t he engine felt good:' said Bayliss later. Thus Hodgson inherited 10th after "my first real race of the season," holding Abe at bay to the flag. Tamada was a little way back at the finish, t hen Hofmann, with Hopkins hangi ng on for grim death be hind. Jeremy McWilliams's Aprilia was another 10 seconds be hind at th e flag, tak ing the last point, Kenny Roberts Jr. blamed an electronic glitch for a power loss that saw him drop back steadily all race long. Ch ris Burns (WCM ) was I7th and last. almost 40 seconds adrift. Rossi's third win in a row, his fourth in the sixraces, marked a seat change in the po ints table. He now has the same 126 score as Gibernau , but two more race wins gives him the official lead . Biaggi has 93 , Checa 56 , then Melandri and Edwards both have 54 . 250CC GRAND PRIX The major excitement in the race came from front-row starter Dani Pedrosa, who simply crawled off the line to get in to the first corner 17t h. "T he re was some probl em with the engine - it nearly stopped," he said. Up front, Porto had opened up more than a second over Rolfo and de Puniet, and he was trying to break away. But when de Puniet go t to second on la p two, he started gradually chippi ng away at the the team sayingthat it suited him on the wet . There were whispers of a shortage of parts, however, which could have been a deciding factor. O n day two , they were again back and forth. Capirossi set his fast time on the Twin-Pulse; BayliSS on the Four, but again there were circumstances involved: His Twin-Pulsewas set up for a wet track, and the session was dry. The originalTwin -Pulse, demonstrated alongside the Four-Pulse at the last GP of 2002, fired adjacent cylinders simultaneously,emulating the 9O-

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