Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Ro§§i Penalized! Legenda ry crew chief Jerry Burgess and his eve n mo re lege ndary rider Vale ntino Rossi found themselves on the wr ong side of the rules at Q atar - and they suffer ed a serious penalty as a result. On the even ing before the race , seeking to mollify Rossi's third-row disadvantage, the crew took a scooter out to his position , to spin the w hee l and lay do wn some ru bber. It was not done secret ly, and the te am later denie d that they were trying to improve the grip - mere ly ma rking the spot so that in morning warmup he co uld run over it, firstly to check his line into the first turn, and secondly to clean it of dust . Rossi was no t aw are of th is. The next morning it all kicked off, as the Rep sol Ho nda tea m pro test ed the action. This was upheld, and Rossi was penalize d by an arbitrary him to the back row of the grid. "The peo ple w ho protested this we re basta rds - an d the pena lty is crazy. There is no consistency," Rossi later said live on Italian television. The penalty was issued under the sporting code. rule 3.3.1.2, entitling race direction to of the sport." T it fo r tat, Yamaha then protes ted that Max Biaggl's tea m had swept the dust off his grid position on race eve , wh ich infringes another rule - 1. 15.2 (v) - stating that: ''After practice has started, th e racing surface of the circuit shou ld not be washe d o r brushed exce pt on instruction fro m the race d irector and the FIM safety officer in re spo nse to a localized change in con ditions." Blaggi had the same pen alty ap plied and was moved to the back to start, one place be hind Rossi. Thi s m e ant the race- lon g t ussle between Aoyama and Battaini was now for the rostrum . The Japanes e rider was in fro nt as they started the last lap: the Italian dived inside into the first co rne r, but then he ran w ide and gave Aoyama an easy run to t hird . He did n't realize that Battaini was alm ost two seconds be hind and w eave d down th e straight to block an opponent w ho wasn't th e re . N ie to was only a couple o f se co nds adri ft, w ith Elias 12 se conds behind him in sixth after slowing m id rac e to inspect his m issing knee-slide r, getti ng goi ng again , people have cleaned the ir grid places, and noth ing has happened. My crew did som ething they used to do with [Mick] Doo han when the track was dirty. I didn't know about it until after it had happened ." Later, he turned on Gibernau. "He is behind everything that Honda did," he insisted. co me rs, with a triple-ape x right near the end of the lap being particularly praised . "There are some real fun sectio ns," Honda's Nicky Hayden said, adding. "The grip is just terrible . This is definite lythe slickest track I've ever ridden ." Rossi echoed the approval. "It's wide and technical, and there are some fast cor- ners w here you reallyneed to know how to ride ." The layout was designed with extensive input from five-time World Champion Mick Doo han, though he was not presen t at the race to see his handiwork. The pit garages are extensive and air-conditioned, the paddock buildings likewise. But facilities for spectators were not so extensive - just one grands tand with SOOO seats and nothing at all rou nd the track, where huge ru n-off areas keep the fence a long way from the action. Then again, few wou ld wa nt to sta nd arou nd outside in the heat for long. The marshals had no option, of course. A hundred experienced marsh were flow n in from Valencia to run als the show, and there w ere 300 volunteer marshals, drawn (rom countriesasfar apart as India, Canada and South Africa, to help out. penalize riders for "any cor rupt of fraudulent act, o r any action prejudicial to the interests ator. among others, in an angry postrace outburst. "I've been looking for an excuse not to talk to Sete again, and tod ay he gave it to me ," he said, blaming Gibemau personallyfor the protest lodged not by the Spaniard's Gresini team but by the official HRC factory squad . Earlier, Rossi called race direction "bastard os" (bastards) o n Italian TV, criticizingthe arb itrary pena lty of six seconds for the start- line offence co mmitted by his team . "I was amazed and d isappo inted by the decision to make me start at the back of the grid," he said in his official statement. "There is no consis tency to the decisions. At other races six seconds, which moved thi s pair. It came to no th ing, as he explained . "I o pened t he gas too early o ut of one of the corn e rs and en de d up in the gravel ," de Pun iet said . By half d istance , Po rto had o pen ed a small gap , le ss than two seconds , and w hile Pedro sa kept o n pu shing, he never got any clo ser, all the way to the flag. ''A pe rfec t race," Po rto later sa id. "It was hard to chase Porto ," Pedrosa said, "but I was hoping he might make a m istake. It ne ve r happened ." De Angel is was st ill close m idrace, but he was at the limit and never able to challenge . Soon he was d ropping back but seemed safe enough in th ird . Then, w ith two laps to go , he was to uring and ret ired be fo re the end . A wheel weight had come ad rift fro m his front and punctu red his rad i- Valentino Rossi used to call himself Rossifum e , and the defending World Champion certai nly was fuming as he launched an aston ishing atta ck on his title rival, Sete Gibernau, th e n backing off after weari ng thro ugh his leathers. T he rest w e re main ly well spread o ut: Rolfo fad ing in se ve nth w ith sliding tire s, Debon winn ing a lo ng battle wi th Marchand and O live round ing out the top 10. Pedrosa st ill has a comfortable points ma rgin, 25 4 to Porto's 211, with de Pun ie r' s cha nces gone, on 187. Elias has 152 , and Ao yam a m o ved past de Angelis to fifth , 119 to 114. 125CC GRAND PRIX Sto ne r led away and for the first fou r laps, until a shu ffle on the straight d ro pped him to th ird, be hind Lorenzo and Baut ista . wi th Dovizioso ha rd be hind . By now the lead ing fou r were already w ay ahead of Kallio on the second KTM, who was himse lf st re tching away fro m the ne xt group, le d by Ste ve Jenkne r. Locate lli had bo gged down on the start line , his engine neve r clearing, and he was at t he back. Barb e ra was 14 th, his q ualifying position, nev er getting to grips w ith the track. A la p later Stoner was fou rth and starting to lose gro und as he lost po w e r, and on the ninth he pulled over to the tra ckside to ret ire ye t again , his thi rd bre akd ow n in a row an d his sixth no nsco re, after sufferi ng injury before tha t. T he lead ing three were at it almost to th e end: Bautista leading fro m laps six to 12, Se te Gibern au defended himself with some clarity. "I saw his crew laying dow n the ru bber w ith the scoo ter, and I joked to Jerry Burgess that if he carried on , Iwo uld protest. He replied that I shouldn't do that, and that he wou ld do the same for my grid position." It had just bee n banter, and he added : "I don't agree with the penalty at all." The bra nd-new Losail Circuit outside the Qatar capital, built at a cost of $SB million, is closer to the sea in ge ntly undulatingsto ny desert, met with mixed reactionsfrom riders, suffering in blazing near- l 04-degree heat, and slitheri g aroundon a brand-new surface that n had d ust instead of rubbe r laid on the racing line. "It fee ls like you're riding on a used , we t front tire - with no air in it," said Proton KR rider James Haydon, who was replacing Kurtis Robe rts for one race . Suzuki rider Jo hn Hopkins said: "It's quite a relief with my broken ribs - you don't have to push too hard, like riding in the wet." Alex Barros said: "The first day was for cleaning and learning." Aside fro m the lack of use and over iygreen surface (why did the locals not spen d the weekend before driving round and round in their four-wheel drives to put some rubber down?) , the major prob lem of a desert track w illalways be dust. The vast grave l trap s we re sprayed with a special co mpou nd to re duce dust , w hile much of the circuit was lined with Astrot urf. Defending 250cc World Champ ion Man ue l Poggi ali's persistent bad luck this season got worse at Q atar, when he suffered a freak injury while playin squash that will rule him g out for at least one GP. The San Marino rider was playing squash in his hotel when he slammed into the glass back wall. The glass shattered, and he was lucky to escape with cuts only to his leg. It was serious eno ugh, though, entailing muscle damage and req uiring SO stitches. He is expected to miss next weekend's Sepang GP but to be fit for the Australian ro und a week later. Aprilia was quick to announce a replacement for the From the first morning practice to later that same aftemoon, lap t imes went dow n by a massive se ven seconds as the bikes laid some rubber on the racing line and the grip improved lap by lap. T he problem was that it remained very slippery off the line. "Overta king will be impossible except on the straight , which is bad if you have an underpowered bike," said John Hopkins, whose Suzuki remai ns dow n on top speed. "If you try to go unde r anybody into a comer, you'd both crash ." Kawasaki rider Alex Hofmann also had a pungent comment . "The racing line is so narrow it would be verging on suicide to stray off it," he said. Proo f came in practice with the number of riders taking to the gravel traps , several of them more than o nce. Serial winner Valentino Rossi excelled in this dep artm ent as we ll, running across the gravel no less than eighttimesin the four sessions . Malaysian Gp' pulling former GP winner Marce llino Lucchi out of mothballs (or, mo re accurately, off test-riding dut ies on the MotoGP Cube) to race the 250. "I'll have to change my style, but this 250 is like the bikes I used to develo p for Aprilia," the 46-year-o ld racer said. Three-time 500cc GP winner Ga rry McCoy will be making a return to the top class in racing for the rest of the season, riding the Aprilia RS3 Cube in place of injured Brito n Shane Byrne. McCoy, who claimed his wins in 2000 on the Red BuB Yamaha, willgo to Malaysia stra ight from Magny Cours in France , where he completed his first season in World Supe rbikes, winning one race . The Austra lian rider, nicknamed Sultan of Slid e for his wild cornering style, is scheduled to race the Aprilia at Sepang, his hom e GP at Phillip Island and the final ro und in Valencia. Byrne will be out for In other respects, the circuit wo n a p proval. the rest of the season, after examination of The longlap conforms more to classic circ uit his injured left wrist revealed much more serious damage than was at first diagnosed . Byrne broke his wrist at Brno but came back fo r the Mot egi race, stillsuffering pain and riding problem s but soldiering on to finish layout, without chicanes - more like Sepang than Valencia - and at 3.3 miles it is longer than Muge llo , and shorter only than Assen , Sepang and Bmo . The re is a good variety of www.cyclenews.co m Continued on page '9 CYCLE NEWS • OOOBER 13, 200 4 19

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