Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128343
"And they all came tumbling down," ... The start of the Japanese GP w as a wild on e a s Loris Capirossi (65) went into turn one, lost the rear end and took out five o the rs, including John Hopkin s (21) , Colin Edwards (45), Max 8iogg; (3), Kenny Roberts J r. (10) and Nicky Hayden (69). w...,_.. . . I Briefly..• Tohru Ukawa's wild-card Honda RCV had plenty of differences from the regular bikes as wellas the fairing design - the most significant being two liters less fuel. "This is the prototype for next year, though not the final design," said project leader Shogo Kanaum i. "You can see the fairi ng is changed , but almost every other part is slightly diff erent, testing for next year," he said. In 2005, the maximum fuel capacity drops from 24 liters to 22, and Ukawa's bike was already fitted with a smaller tank. "And we will not fill it completely," Kanaumi said. "Youwould expect that bett er fuel consumption would mean less power, but this is not the case. Y can see that from ou Ukawa's top speed." After practice, only Max Biaggi we nt through the traps faster, at IB8.79 mph compared with Ukawa's best of 187.9 mph. Next came Neil Hodgson's 2003 Ducati at 186.8 mph. Honda's 2004 RC2 11Vgained five percent In horsepower, compared with last year's machine , an d at the same time had a fivepercent im provement in fuel co nsumpti on. The figures we re released at the technical briefing, where top HRC engineers also revealed some of the techniques they had employed this year to take up the challenge posed by the departure of Valentino Rossi to Yamaha. The most elegant and innovative is a new indirect thro ttle linkage giving a variable ratio between twist-grip and thrott le butterflies, changinggear by gear and full adjustable to suit rider prefere nce. y HRC retained many secrets, especially in tenns of electronic engine management controls, including traction and/or launch control: but the company made good its new policyof becoming, as president Suguru Kanazawa said, "a candid and open company" in other respects. The impr ovements from 2003 to 2004 it was prepared to describe were in five areas : engine, exhaust, throttle operation, cow ling and rear suspension. The bikes had also been through chassis changes, includinga change Yamaha by the end. Front tire problems dea lt a bitter blow to Sete Gibernau, who considered ret iring at one point but soldiered on to his eventual sixth. ':At the en d my tire was in pieces ," he said. "Michelin have helped me all year, but we need to go back to the t ire I prefer for the rest of the season." Fortuna Yamaha's Carlos Checa was a distant seventh; Neil Hodgso n held his d'Antin Ducat! teammate Ruben Xaus at bay fo r the full race for eighth. The rad ical depletion of the field worked in favo r of these and a num ber of other riders, with only 15 finishers and points for all - even fo r distant, last-placed finisher Youichi Ui in a one-race WCM outing, the Japanese ride r finishing a lap and a half behind . Marlboro Ducati's Troy Bayliss was not am ong them as the Aussie crashed out with five laps left after a storming ride up to fifth, w ith his eye on further improvement. '" guess it's better to crash out of fifth than 16t h," he said. Wild card Toh ru Ukawa also crashed out, an early exit for the experimental prototype Honda ReV entered by the facto ry. Earlier, Telefo nica MoviStar Ho nda's Dani Pedrosa took a fifth w in of the year to extend his own title lead to 47 points, de feating a persistent but eventually deeply chagrined Toni Elias (Fortuna Hon da), w ho had led his rival for m uch of the race but en ded up three seconds adrift. Ped rosa was de lighted, after crashing heavily on t he first day of practice; Elias complained after the race : "I don't think Dani was faster than me, but he weighs 44 kilos [97 pounds] and I we igh 67 [147 pounds]. There's nothing I can do about that ." Pedrosa responded at the first opportunity. "Iwa nt everyone to know my weig ht is actually 49kg [ 108 pounds]," he said. The race was anot her gutter fo r Australian Anthony West. He qualified on the second row, was fastest in morni ng warmup and was run ning strongly in sixth after 14 of 23 laps when he crashed out, rejoining at the back only to retire. And rea Dov izioso took a big step towards securing the I25cc crown, taking a 45-point lead after a fourth win of the year in an extraordinary race . The first section (which Dovizioso was leading handsomely) was sto pped after a crash in the final corner after nine laps. The restart, a complete 13lap race in itself, saw his closest title rivals suffer various misfortunes. Hecto r Barbe ra had bike trou ble and had to restart fro m the back of the grid only to retire; Jo rge Lorenzo had similar pro blems, manag ing to work his way through to seventh; Roberto Locatelli was disputing the lea d of the restart almost to the end, but cras hed out on the final lap. MOTOGP The race was short for a number of impo rtant riders - de sperately so. Rossi was as usual one of the lucky ones, getting off the line well to lead into the first corner. Hopkins was right behi nd him, but Capirossi was on a high-speed trajectory www.cyclenews.com in swingarm-pivot position, and swingarm and stiffness ratios, chieflyto address the problem of tire chatter generated by the new larger and grippier rear Michelin. The engine had bee n improved by reducing reciprocating weight (basicallypistons and con-rods). They had earlier revealed that this allowed a five-percent increase in revs without reducing serv ice life. A co mpa riso n of 2003 and 2004 power and torque curves showed that while power was slig htly greater toward the top of the previous engine's rev range . the extra power came mostly in the extension to the range. The exhaust syst em was changed in the middle of the season from a five-into-three system to five-into-four - marked by a pair of tailpipes in the seat where there had previously been a singlepipe. HRC's powe r curves showed that in fact the later system offers slightly less power and torq ue except at the lower end of the rev range, where a dip in both power and to rque curves had been eliminated. Not all riders liked this system, admitted Kanazawa. Sete Gibernau, in particular, had stuck with the Continued on page J 5 CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 11