Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

MOTOGP for a bit. It's a bit confusing," he said later. "The track had changed since yesterday, and on harder tires we were sliding a lot, and two or three seconds slower than qualifying. I played it safe on the last lap, and tried to pass - but I couldn't do it." Aprilia's Alvaro Bautista was third for the second successive weekend. MOTOGP Barros got a flying start, with Rossi, Hayden and Checa chasing him into the first corner. By the end of the lap Checa was third and Biagg was also ahead of i Hayden , gaining another place the next time around. Rossi had made a stab for the lead at the end of the second lap, into the final hairpin, but he ran wide and Barros got ahead again. Two laps later, Rossi dived inside Barros again into the slow left just over halfway around, and this time he made it stick around the following looping right. The lea ding trio was already moving clear, with Hayden about to displace Checa fro m fourth but unable to match the lead ers' pace . They were fast, Rossi marginally faster, and he started to pull out three- or four-tenths a lap. Barros had his hands full with Biaggi, but he was hard to pass, and the pair almost touched as Biaggi pushed through inside on lap seven . Rossi was now eight-tenths clear, and the gap continued to stretch over the next two laps. But Biaggi was wasn't fo r giving up, and he certainly kept Rossi honest, . - Round 14 Octobe r 10, 2 0 0 4 Malaysian Grand Prix taking a tenth off a 1.2second gap on lap nine and coming with in a second the next time around. Then Biaggi lost a bit, then regained a bit, to be nine-tenths away on lap 14. Could he catch him? "When I closed to w ithin a seco nd, I made a couple of mistakes , which made me rea lize how close to the limit we were - bo th of us," Biaggi said. "Rossi rode very well today, and I rode not so bad ." But he was 3.66 sec onds behind at the end . Barros faded slowly after Biaggi nailed him, and he later said, "The temperature increase has been so much , and halfway through the race I nearly lost the front two or three times, so I just kept my rhythm. After the bad luck over the last few races, I'm just happy to make the podium." Hayden had passed Checa on lap four and then came under mild pressure from Gibernau for a few laps after he'd also passed Checa. But ' while he couldn't catch the leaders, the tail-sliding Superbike ex-AMA Champion had him cov ered. "It felt really greasy out there today, but in the end I guess it was a respectable fourth, " Hayden said. Capirossi had a gang with him, more than fo ur seconds behind Checa Tamada, Nakano , Bayliss and Edwards, though the latter pa ir was to lose touch be fore one third distance . Checa was batt ling chatter, and with Cap irossi remorselessly pulled his group up with him, on his tail by lap 13. By now, Gibernau had fallen back into Checa's grasp, and w ith Tamada and Nakano holding a close watching brief, Capirossi disposed of 36 OOOBER 20, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Checa two laps later - and passed Gibernau as well one la p after that. Now the erstwhile championship challenger was really in the th ick of it, with Tamada also ahead of Checa, Nakano on his back wheel and all three looking for a way past the Honda. Only Tamada managed to pass Gibernau, and the Japanese rider got stronger as the race wore on , cursing his poor early laps that left him in the midd le of the traffic. T here were still three laps, and Tamada wasn 't finished, closing a gap of more than two seconds on Cap irossi and pouncing through the last corner. Gibernau managed to keep Nakano at bay, with Checa losing ground behind and Bayliss and Edwards spreading apart behind him. Abe couldn 't stay w ith that group but was safely clear of Xaus . Almost 15 seconds be hind, Kagayama had caught both Aprilias - McCoy ahead of McWilliams in the midd le stages of the race - then managed to outbrake both of them as the ir tire -chatter problems made the end of the race harder. Kagayama was still less than a second ahead of a determined McWilliams at the finish with McCoy, now at last wearing his own leathers, six seconds back at the end and out of the points. "I lost a bit of rear grip at the en d, and I was having to work th e front re ally hard ," McCoy said. "It left me a bit of a sitt ing duck really." Nobuatsu Aoki soldiered on to finish 17th on the Prot o n, fearing his rear tire was chunking. In fact it had merely shifted six inches on the rim, throwing the balance Th e fir st World Cho mpiDn Df 2 0 04 - Andrea Da viziDsD. The young Italian w as ere w ned at Sepang after another v icto ry. out. The WCMs were a lap behind , James Ellison half a minute ahead of Youichi Ui. Hop kins was the first to drop out, spitting mad at w hat was far fro m the first Suzuki valve-spri ng breakage at such an inconvenient moment. It was disappointing as well for the team, who is hoping to prevent Hopkins from taking an offer from Ducati. Neil Hodgson had another strange afternoon - his d'Antin Ducati caught fire on the sighting lap. They put it out on the grid, but not surprisingly it then lost power, and he too retired, as did Alex Hofmann , blaming electronic glitches that made the Kawasaki unr ideab le. Melandri crashed out with 12 laps left and stalked away without comment. Nobody had an odder afternoon than James Haydon , in his second Proton race in place of Kurt is Roberts. A misjudgme nt with the clutch on the line saw him called in for a ride-through penalty for jumping the start. Two laps after rejoining, his team missed putting his lap board out. "I thought they wanted me to come in," he said, and did so, much to their surprise . By then , there wasn't much point in rejoining. "At least we saved the mileage," team boss Kenny Roberts said. The math is now fairly simple . With an advantage of 30 points , 254 to 234 , Rossi can drop five to Gibernau in Aust ralia and still win the title. Biaggi can do no better than third , on 188, with Barros distant on 144 points. Edwards dropped to fifth on 136, with Tamada making ground on 131 . 250CC GRAND PRIX A faultless performance from the class superstar Pedrosa began as he let out the clutch, moving straight into the lead as Elias led the pursuit from Porto and de Angelis. West was fifth, disputing the posit ion with fast starter Debon and Fonsi Nieto, when he crashed spectacularly on the way into the penultimate right-hander before the back straight , to be carried away on a stretcher. Rolfo was out in the same crash . This created a gap of more than three seconds fro m the front group, and that grew rapid ly over the coming laps as Aoyama took to the fro nt on lap three, with slow starter de Puniet be hind. The same thing was happening up fro nt as Pedrosa just kept drawing away at a second a lap, setting a new record on the third go-around. At half d istance the gap was up to 10 seconds, and his pace barely slackened from there to the end . The rea l battle was for sec o nd, with Porto and Eliasgoing back and fo rt h at one another and de Angelis poised right behind. On lap 13, he attacked the pair, but it was a last-ditch attempt, and after that he dropped back. The other two were at it to the last lap, when Po rto gave it everything to gain sufficient advantage to be safe from

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