Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

he Qatar Grand Prix had almost everything: Searing heat and blazing rows. Fierce racing and even fiercer controversy. Proof that even the gods are human. The first tie of the electron ic era . And a MotoGP result that throws the World Championship wide open again. The short version is that Valentino Rossi's crew was caught cheat ing (if that's how you see it), and he was punished by start ing from the back row of the grid. In a flurry of counter protest, Max Biagg sufi fered a similar penalty for a slightly different pre-race rule infringement. Rossi then started like a space rocket and rode like a demon to claw his way to fourth in just five laps, batting off a rider or two on the way, only for the Gauloises Yamaharider to crash spectacularly on the sixth of the 22 laps of the 3.33-mile Losail Circuit. It was his second crash of the year, the other at Rio, and it means that Sete Gibemau has closed to within just 14 points of him - with just three races rema ining. While everybody else was struggling with the heat - seven retirements with mechanicalfailure meant just 13 finishe rs - T Gibernau red iscovered his earlier form for a perfect race, taking the lead from pole starter Carlos Checa and his Fortuna Yamaha on the first lap and staying there all the way to the end. His only challenge came from teammate Colin Edwards, who set one fastest lap after another as he closed to within 1.3 seconds by the finish, after starting from the fourth row of the grid. " I don't agree with the penalty to Rossi, and I don't like to beat him this way - but today everything was perfect for me," Gibemau said after his fourth win of the year and his first rostrum since the Czech Republic GP In August. "I've found the right feeling with my bike again, but it's never easy to win. Sometimes it's hard to finish sixth, like in Japan two weeks ago." Edwards' chances of a first GP win were foiled when practice problems put him on the fourth row of the grid, and a poor start meant he was in the thick of the first-lap scrum. By the time he had worked his way through to third, chasing down Checa (who later ret ired with fuel vaporization problems caused by the 104degree heat), he had Rossi on his tail. But Edwards had Rossi covered and was safely ahead when the defending champion 12 OCTOBER 13 ,2004 • CYCLE NEWS went flying. The Texan, whose first and last podium was also for second at Donington Park, looked as though he might easilychallenge teammate Gibemau for the win, having been fast throughout practice, except in the final session, when it mattered. This presented him a dilemma: whether to favor his current teammate's championship chances or to try to beat him to help Rossi and Y amaha - next year's team mate and employer. After the race , Edwards said he had gone for the win, "but Sete was already away. I pushed as hard as I could. I don't want there to be any doubt about that." Edwards had reverted to his old chassis on the first day of practice, when he was fastest, but switched back to the new one he received long after the other riders for the rest of the weekend. Rossi complained about the arbitrary penalty for an action he hadn't even been aware of and also about the "make-it-up" nature of the rules - obviously forgetting that the same race director had decided in his favor when he had stalled before the warmup lap at Le Mans. "I really pushed in the first laps, but finally I made a mistake," he added. "I 4 0th Anniversary could see Colin [Edwards] was in better shape than me , but I thought I could make the podium." The last man on the rostrum , sensationally was Ruben Xaus, the d'Antin . Ducati team rider claiming the marque's first rostrum of the season on a year-old satellite team bike. Both the factory Ducatis retired, Troy Bayliss early on with terminal tire problems and Loris Capirossi after another eight laps with an engine problem . By then Capirossi had already run off the track twice. Xaus had a near perfect weekend. "The pace in the first five laps was brutal, and the Ducati is hard work, with a full tank and new tires," Xaus said. "But I was really fired up." For once , the other riders had no advantage of prior track knowledge. Alex Barros brought the Repsol Honda to fourth, pushing Xaus hard at the end and less than two seconds behind. Barros' ride was a disappointment because he'd been knocked off line and down the order early on by Rossi and then had run off the track when he was blinded by a dense smokescreen laid by Shinya Nakano 's Kawasaki. Nakano had been a strong third when he had his second (or was it third)

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