Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Hopkin!!; - []h 50 [Io!!;.:! Balmy weather, by and large,interrupted by a brief but meaningless shower at the start of the final MotoGP session saw times slashed - the first I Bqualifiers within Valentino Rossi's lap record. And some surprises up at the top were seen as wellifyou cal MakotoTamada's second poleina row a sur- should have. It' s hard to be at the top for all 16 races of the championship." The battle for th ird had been close, with Melandri hanging on, but Abe slipping past Nakano - whose Kawasaki had smoked ominously in the early stages, but w ho was hanging on impressively w hen Abe suddenly slowed on lap 10, on ly to cruise back to the pits with "a mystery technical fault ." By then, Gibernau, who had never quite been there. was dropping back , and so was Checa, who then fell victim to Bayliss. The Aussie was gaining momentum finishing the first lap 15th afte r narrowly avoiding the first-turn mayhem. Bayliss was on a mission, rapidly closing on the troubled Gibernau, and ahead of him by lap 15. Barros also passed the Spaniard one lap later, bot h underbraking for the first corner. The pair then quickly closed what had been a two-second gap to the ne xt two, Nakano having raised a cheer on lap 19 as he o utbraked Melandri at the end of the back straight, the Italian fighting back only to run wide in the turn. Bayliss was ready to attack Melandri too, when he pushed too hard and crashed on lap 20; one lap later Barro s was ahead of Melandri, but Nakano was a co uple o f seconds clear and still going strong as another major beneficiary of the good Bridgestones. At the finish, the Kawasaki was only seven seconds behind Rossi - an excellent result at a track w here the green team had ex pected lots of problems - an d still two ahea d of Barros. Melandri was another eight seconds away, with Gibernau four behind him. Checa had never shown much strength, losing touch with the Nakano gang after a run through the dirt . and he was easy meat for Bayliss and Barros, finishing almost 10 seconds adrift in a lonely seventh. Ho dgso n had been ke pt honest throughout by Xaus, after fo llow ing Barros past his te ammate on lap six, but he was two seconds ahe ad at the end ; Hofmann had pressed Xaus fo r much of the race, dropping away in the latter part for 10th. O livie r Jacque was a long way back on the Moriwaki, though 11th was the tubeframed bike's best resu lt. He was six seconds ahead of Je re my McWilliams, who had crashed o n the third lap but remounted at the back, ahead only of Ui; McWilliams then charged through to 12th, ahead of prise. O n the firstday,it was John Hopkins,hisfirst-ever front row and certainlyfirst provisional pole - thanks to some hard riding and Suzuki's new power-up exhausts. "I likethistrack wit h all the hard braking- and Suzuki and Bridgestonehave both made a lot of progress," Hopkinssaid. On the second day, he failed to improve, even slipping off inthe moming. "Our advantageisthe corners, but you can onlygo round them so fast- as I proved," he said. But hisFriday time was enough to keep himon pole throughout Saturday, until after the fiag had gone down, with the time-remaining clock at zero. ButTamada had alreadystarted hislapat this point. and he was flying, stoppingthe clocksat a full .557 of a second ahead of Hopkinsto make a Bridgestone one-two. Beforethe weekend, the japanese rider had said: "Rossi had too much fun with me lastyear: Thisyear I want to have some fun with him." ButTamadawas lessconfident, in spite of hiscracking pace on qualifying tires, because Rossi had been reelingoffa stringof lapson race rubber faster than Tamada or anyone else could manage. "I think he has the best rhythm - ~ will be hard tomorrow," Tamada said. And it was Rossi third overali, completingthe front row and half-a-tenth slower than Hopkins, though thismight have been different. He was fast all weekend, but missedout on his qualifyingtires run when hisfront brake started binding, triggering feverish pitactivity as he pulledinafter the session. "It justfeltso wrong I had to pull in," Rossi said. "But we did a great laptime yesterday - my rhythm isgood and the settingsokay." Asso often before, nobody could rule out the possibility of another dominant performance by Yamaha, even though thistrack was expected to be bad for ~ because of the heavyemphasison low-end acceleration . MaxBiaggi was also running well throughout, pushing up to lead row two inthe final session from Colin Edwards, who was running the latest chassis for the firsttime. "This isthe firsttime I'vefeltcompletelycomfortable with the bikeall season," Edwards said, hiseye on a second podiumof the year. Marco Melandri completed the second row, gaining speed on the second day and just nudging ahead of Loris Capirossis Friday time. The Ducatirider would have been higher but he mistimed ' , hisfinal run on qualifiers, startinghis fast lap just after the end of the session rather than just before and running a time good enough for fourth, had ~ been valid. Alongside himon row three was Kenny Roberts jr., shaded by hisyoungSuzuki teammate but not dismayed after improvingthe machine balanceon race tires. "We're sneaking up inthe second group. If Ican stayout of trouble, we could havea good result," he said. NickyHaydenwas alongside, spending plentyof time inthe clinic gettingintensivetreatment for hisleft knee but was still quicker than teammate Barros, who led row four from double-crasher CarlosCheea Shinya Nakano pushed through to 12thon day two, saying the new Marelli injection was a bigimprovementin braking . Only then came Sete Gibernau, 13th and on the fourth row, a bitter blow to hisrace hopes. "We havethe same problem as Estoril - underbraking- and we can't seem to fix it," he said. Almostas SUrprising was the position of wild-cardTohru Ukawa, the official Rev Honda development rider. fresh from a series of tests at the track. "It's really no good," he said. Norick Abe was alongside, then the Ducatisof TroyBayliss, Neil Hodgsonand Ruben Xaus on row six, ahead of Andy Hofmann, Jeremy McWilliams, wild-card Olivierjacque, Nobuatsu Aoki and ShayenByrne. Youchi Ui's firstride in the classsaw himfail to qualify by six-tenths. still-injured April ia teammate Shayne Byrne , w ho was a lap behind in a race he hadn't expected to be ab le to finish. Byrne ended up 13th , equaling his second-best result of his rookie year. Nobuatsu Ao ki was another 20 seconds back on the recalcitrant Proton KR V-five, his left foot scorched by a blazing footpeg 14 SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS 40th Anniversary and his right spattered with oil. "O ne side was roasted, the other deepfried," he said . Ui was another 85 -seconds away but in the points all the same; Ukawa cras hed out on lap nine, after never runn ing better than ninth . The blessed Rossi left Japan smelling of

• Cover