Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I Briefly... Miche lin' s fire-worksho p awning was all but destroyed in a surprise attack after the race - from one of HRC' s tr ucks. The handbrake had been left off, but nobody was able to stop the truck as it rolled inexorably forward into the awning, sustaining a fair bit of damage to the cab as it scattered tire workers and damaged tire fitting machinery before it sto pped. Luckily all the peo ple managed to get out of the way. Mystery surrounds Yamaha's and Valentino Rossi's sponsorship for next year, after a story in Spanish magazine Solomoto reported that Yamahaplans to ditch its current Gau loise livery to run its main rider in plain factory colors next year, to celeb rate its SOth anniversary. At the same time, leaks from the other side - Altadis, owners of the Gauloises and Fortuna brands - suggest that any break-up may be com ing from it, with disillusionment about Rossi's growing remoteness from the press . Given the cessive no-score droppi ng him to third overall. But now Biaggi is just one point be hind, and Honda see ms to have regained the upper hand tec hnically. The championship seaso n just kee ps getting better. A de lighted Biaggi de dicated his victory to Anto nio Cobas, the Camel Pons technical direct or w ho was stricken wit h a brain tumor last year and succum bed short ly before the start of th is season. "He was a fantastic pe rson that I shared a pit box with last year:' Biaggi said. "For a long time I have wanted to win for him, but until now it was n't possible." It was a narrow w in, wit h Barros challenging in t he final laps and less tha n half a second adrift at the flag. T he facto ry Hon da rider was the on ly on e eq uipped with a new exhaust system, designed to improve low- rev torque and res ponses. "When he came close, I made sure to close the door everywhere:' said Biaggi. "To lose such a race in the last co rne r wou ld be terrible." Barros was glowing after his best finish of a so-far downb eat season as Honda's chief wa rrior. " I had some contact with Se te [Gibe rnau1 at the sta rt, and lost a few places, but I rode hard and fought for the win," Barros said. "The bike wo rked well allweekend, and the new exha ust definitely helped traction in the slower turns . I ho pe t his race marks a tu rning point in t he season for me." Hayden's second successive t hird place came after a similar fight - Barros was e ighth at the end of lap o ne, and Hayde n 12th after his ow n bashing first lap at an all-action track where overtaking is far from easy. "I really had to get my head down and take chances in the ea rly laps," Hayden said. "I passed two at a time - I had to , and I really abused my tires." Even so , he was able to fend off Rossi's desperate last-lap attack, keeping the multiple champion behind him by just twotenths. "He 's not the sort of guy you want behind you at that stage of the race ," said Hayden. Rossi blamed excessive tire wear on the left-hand side (the first half of t he track is mainly a long series of lefts). "I wou ld have risked crashing again if I'd pushed any harder: ' he said. "It was difficult to steer towards the end. Hond a has made another ste p forwa rd , and we're a bit behind. But lif is always a surp rise - t his e turned out to be one of Honda's tracks . O ur bike use d more tir e he re t han Honda ." Until now, the Sachsenring has favored the more nimble Yamahas, but today was diff erent. Rossi's was the only Yamaha to finish. His facto ry teammate Carlo s C heca crashed out with 26 of t he 30 laps remaining, wh ile he was charging in t hird place. Nor ick Abe was the best of the rest, heading t he pursuit pack, until his teammate Marco Melandri caught him wit h 10 laps to go. Melandri then crashed after running on to the grass - he' d bee n com plaining all weekend that his bike was too nervous, and he to ok Abe with him in a hor rendous ta ngle that sent the Japanese rider flying high into the air. By pur e goo d fortune , neither was seriously hurt, thoug h Abe was taken to hospital for precaution ary X-rays to his back and neck . No bu Aoki had bee n the first to crash, on lap four, after pushing too hard when he found his off-the- pace Proton unexpectedly batt ling with Neil Hodgson's Ducati. Then it was C heca, followed four laps later by Gibernau, who lost the front while bat- tling with leader Biaggi and second-placed Rossi. T his left Loris Capiross i's Marlboro Ducati in t hird and with every chance of closingon the leade rs - until he, too, slid off on the following lap, without quite knowing w hy. His teammate Troy Bayliss was battling in 12th, and losing ground, until he, too, crashed on t he follo w ing lap. And 10 laps later Melandri and Abe were out. With Kurtis Roberts retiring his Proton with a blistered rear tire , not to me ntion a misfire and a failing clutch, t his left just 16 finishers. Telefonica MoviStar Honda's Co lin Edwards was fif for a t hird time this year, th fighting to the front of the purs uit then fending off Rio winner Makoto Tamada and his Camel Honda, just three-tenths behind at the flag. Shinya Nakano was seventh, on ly two secon ds adrift, equal ing his and Kawasaki's best resu lt. Fro nt- row starter Kenny Robe rts Jr. had bee n chasing him hard but dro pped to five seconds behind at the finish, his st rong pra ctice for m and always-neat on the -limit riding not enough to overcome his horsepower deficit, afte r finishing lap one in third . "They just line me up on t he stra ight and outb rake me at the e nd - there 's noth ing I can do , though we are getti ng better: ' he said. Teammate John Hopkins had caught him after a mediocre start, but he also dropped back at t he end, anxious to preserve his first top- 10 finish in a year stricke n w it h bad luck. Kawasaki's Alex Hofmann was anot her 10 seconds adrift in 10t h, wit h d'Antin Ducat i's Ruben Xaus I Ith and Jeremy McWilliams shrugging off back injuries from a heavy qualifying crash to defeat Hodgson's d'Antin Ducati for 12th - for Aprilia's best finish of t he year. The n came his teammate Shane Byrne, www.cyclenews .com num ber of magaz ine covers and pictures that its w inning rider generates, this is even less plausible than the notion that Yamaha would want to sacrifice the sponsorship money just for a bit of cor porate vanity. But the contract is up at the end of this year, and the latter appears to be true. The Solomoto story insisted that the split is coming from Yamaha, which wishes "to be single" for its half-century year. It had declined a 45 million Euro ($55.9 million) offer for Altadis to renew its curre nt contract, which expires at the end of t his year, for a further two years for both the factory tea m (Rossi and Carlos Checa) and the sate llite Tech 3 team, currently running Marco Melandri and Norick Abe. It is understood that Tech 3 we re available for this sponsorship, but not the factory team. The issue was complicated still further by rumors that in fact the team will be fully sponsored by Nastro Azzuro, a brand of beer from Peroni. The Italian brewers already have a strong pe rsonal sponsorship relationship with Rossi, and his Hondas carr ied the logo. Underlying all this is t he threat to tobacco sponsors from forthcoming Euro pean legislation, which willoutlaw such sponsorship, beginning in July of 2006. Alex Ba r ros' top factory Honda had a new, gruffer note at the 5achsenring, with one of his pair of bikes fitt ed with a newlook exhaust syste m developed by the factory to improve bottom-end per formance and response . The or iginal system has a two -into -o ne from each bank, the front at low level and the rear under the seat, with a third single pipe for the other front-bank cylinder. The new system retains the single megaphone but takes both the other pipes out at high level, with slash-cut tailpipes follow ing the curve of the seat tail. It was not that much different, said Barros after the first day of practice , "but it seems to help a little bit. It smoothes out the powe r at the lower end of the rev range and helps ereContinued on page '7 CYCLE NEWS • JUL 28 , 2004 Y 15

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