Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Briefly... Continued from poge " ea rlier system. "It is a matt er of riding style ," said Kanazawa. "Maybe he does no t like to opera te so much lower in the rev range ." The accelerator linkage, dubbed the Honda IntelligentThrottle Control System, demonstrates both radical thinkingand great engineering simplicity, and it is described more elsewhere in this report. The effect is to reduce the throttle opening available to the rider in the lower gears, where torque multiplication imposes excessive loadson the rear roses again and with 229 poi nts to Gibemau's 190 . A second successive noscore left Biaggi on 158, with only the most distant mathematical possibility still remaining of the title. Barros has I IS, with Tamada on I 14 and Edwards on I I I. 250CC GRAND PR IX For a while, although there were on ly two in it, the 250cc race looked like a return to the tooth-and-nail days. Elias had led away, but Pedrosa took just one lap to get past de Pun iet and start attacking. On the third lap he passed Elias onto the back straight, only to have Elias dive straight bac k past at the other end of it. Battle was on . Two laps later, Elias seemed to Signal Pedrosa past at the same downhill comer, and tucked in behind him for a relentless chase. De Puniet was almo st two seconds adrift and coming under strong pressure from Pedrosa's teammate Aoyama and wild card Yuki Takahashi (Honda). On lap seve n he succumbed to Aoyama, and the next time around he crashed on the exit of the first corner while trying to get back to third . He hurriedly remounted . The ne xt group was led by fast-starting We st , but he had some strong riders behind him , including slow-off-the-line Sebastian Porto's factory Aprilia, and Alex de Angelis. T he Australian had succumbed to Porto on lap eight, but he w as fe nd ing off the San Marino rider when he slipped off at the bottom of the bac k straight on lap IS. Porto kept on pushing, passing the slowing Takahashi on lap 14 , but he was not close enough to catch Aoyama, who finishe d fourth , four seconds adri ft of the Japane se rider, but substantially the top Aprilia. "It was a tough race fro m the start with Elias, but I held on , and at the end I co uld push a little harder," said Pedrosa, shrugging off his rivals comments about the unfairness of his smaller stature. 'The Aprilia's had problems , but you can see this is a Honda circu it, with my teammate Hiro [Aoyama] third." De Ange liswas sixth, nine seconds away fro m Takahashi, and a similar distance ahead of Fo rt un a Ho nda's Roby Rolfo, the Italian rider having his hands full wi th the simi larly mounted w ild card Shu he i Aoyama. Franco Battaini waited until the clo sing stages before getting ahead of Alex Debon's Honda. De Puniet had rejoined in 19th, but charged all the way back to I Ith by the end , his last victim being Hondamounted wild card Yuzo FUjioka. Pedrosa has one hand on the title, with 234 points to de Punier's 18 7. Porto is dosingon 186, Elias has 142 and de Angelis 114. I25CC GRAND PRIX The first part of the race counted only for gr id pos itions for the restart, but decided th e fate of some important riders. KTM's Casey Stoner led the first lap, but on the second he suddenly slowed and pulled out w ith a return of his Estoril gearbox problem. Dovizioso took over, 2.5 seconds ahead of Locatelli after e ight laps, the latter 3.6 seconds ahead of a gang le d by an up-anddown Bar bera, from Corsi, Kallio and Lorenzo, with Steve Jenkne r seventh. The lea ders had started their 10 th lap w he n Andrea Ballerini, lying 13th, fell at the e xit of the last turn. Along came Im re Toth , piling into the fallen bike and crashing specta cularly right in front of the pits, luckily e scaping without injury. With wreckage all over the track, the red nags came out directly. Und er the latest rules , the last 13 laps w o uld be the whole race, for full points. This tim e Locatell i took off, and set the pace fo r the first seven laps , Dovizioso shadowing him and nipping past on lap eight, on the fro nt straight. Locatelli did the same to him next time round and led for two more, but Dovizioso was determined and with two laps to go was in front again . But he couldn't escape, and halfway around the final lap, the older rider was again pressing hard when his front tucked on a slow corner, and he went down, remounting hurriedly but way out of touch. "I had a good pace in the first race, but I didn't fee l so good in the second ," said Dovizioso, after an important win . tire, without actuallylimiting movement of the throttle and compromising the crucial "feeL" The stream lining was improved by changing the angle of the front of the fairing and adding a smaller seat with lower drag. The rear suspension change to the fully floating system moved the link from the bottom of the suspension to the top. This not only we nt further with Honda's policyof centralizing the mass, but it also changed the vector of the force transmitted to the chassisat high lean angles. Valen tino Rossi tested a new exhaust system for the Y amaha MI after Estoril, with the current four-into-one system repla ced by a more compact four-into-four arrangement, but it was not available for use at Motegi. "They're not ready for here, but I hope to have them before the end of the seaso n." said Rossi. Yamaha had worked with mapping at the tests to make the bike easier to ride. Another advantage of the new system is in its aerodynamics. The current MI has a massive single pipe mounted diagonally at th e rear of the mach ine, imposing a certain amount of drag by virtue of its size and position . New ex ha usts were something of the flavor of the week at Moteg i, with varying resu lts. Suzuki had new pipes for the GSV-R - lo nger and very curvy tailpipes, one on each side replacing the p revious system , which had one short big-bore pipe and one lo nger. There is no change to overall power from the Yoshimura system, but a very significant midrange boost of as much as (acco rding to unofficial sources) 10 horsepower. The result was highly beneficial, according to the riders. "It does improve the throttle connection and make the bike easier to ride , but the main advantage is just in having more grunt." said John Hopk ins, after qualifying on the provisional pole. Teammate Kenny Roberts Jr. added: "I think this is just the beginning of what you 're going to see fo r the rest of this year and early next year. Suzuki has a lot of great plans to keep improving the bike." Ka wasaki also tested a new system , rep lacing its four-into -one with a new four-into- two system made by Akrapovic on both of Hofmann 's mac hines. At the same time they were testing Magneti Marelli fue l injection alongside the regular Mitsubishi system. "There is not a lot of difference at the moment, but the Marelli system has smoother power delivery and feels more controllable, so there is a lot of potential," Hofmann said. Olivier Jacque, the 250cc World Cham pion www.cyclenews.com in 2000 w ho is jobless th is year, made a racing return to Motegi, riding the Mo riwaki Hon da, dubbed the Dream . The French rider took ove r from Andrew Pitt , wh o had rid den th e tube -fram ed Ho nda V-five powered Moriwaki as a wild car d. Pitt move d back to the Superspo rt 600cc class until the end of the season. Jacque's re turn, o n Dunlop tires, was less than inspiring, thou gh much in line with the machine's performance so far. But the team's bro ken -English press bulleti n of the meeting came up with a mem orable quote. Headlined "Olivier Jacque Showing a Proce" (don't ask me), the statement quoted Jacque as saying, "I am hap py to have come back to the GP paddock and I am really enjoying the joint with Moriwaki RacingTeam." I didn't even know he smoked . Colin Edwa rds finally caught up to his Honda peers at Motegi, with the "new " chassis that others have had since much ear- lier in the season, some at the German GP. The former two-time World Superbike Champion has been waiting ever since and compla ining bitterly about tire -chatter problems. "I was the only Michelin rider not to have the new chassis," he said at the last two races . (Tamada also had the old one, but used Bridgestone tires .) At Motegi, he finally got what he had wanted. "I felt comfortable with the new chassis from the start. No w I can turn much easier and control the bike better," he said. Flag- to-nag MotoG P races will be introduced beginning next season, with the races runn ing full distance no matter what happens to the weather. The decision, taken at Estoril by the GP Commission-was confirmed at Motegi by the Permanent Bureau, the overall authority. This is the latest in a series of moves proposed to avoid messing up lV schedules if rain stops a race, and it comes in spite of initial objections by the powerful manufacturers association , the MSMA. It had feared safety problems if riders pitted to change bikes fro m dry settings to the wet, including not only tires and suspension set- tings but also poss ibly gearing, and definitely brakes, from carbon to steel. The new plan overcomes this objection . Instead of having to change the ir machines over, riders will be able to switch to a different bike, already set up for the wet. New yellow na g re gulat io ns were announced at Motegi, with immediate effect . The change re lates to riders who overtake under yellow (caution) nags during a race , and give the rider the chance to correct his mistake , rather than suffer a time , stop-andgo or ride-through penalty. He can scrub out the offense by returni ng to the position he occupied before the infractio n. From that point , his team will be notified immediately, and a board will be displayed on the finish line instructing him to go back to his previous position. Only if he fails to do so over the next three laps will he then be called in for a ride-through. Valentino Rossi, who twice last year made th e error and twice suffered differe nt punishments, welcomed th e decision. "O ften w he n you are racing Continued on page J6 CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 15

• Cover