Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

'" I Briefly... Continued from poge '3 if you fell here, you'd just slide instead of flipping." Insiders said the call for the changes had come directly from the fourman riders ' safety group, comp rised of Valentino Rossi, Kenny Roberts Jr., Sete Giber nau and Nobuatsu Aoki, and Gibernau acknowledged privately that "we may have screwed up , and what looks good on paper may not work so well in practice ." The FIM rep resentative on the race direction committee as well as the riders' forum GP Safety Co mmission is Claude Danis, who declined to blame the riders directly. "It is what they wanted, but we ope rate as a commission, and all are responsible for sa ilable po sition , wi th G ibernau 35 adrift o n 244 , similarly safe in second . Biaggi has 197 and can no t be beate n for th ird . But fou rth remai ns in do ub t, wit h Barro s on ISS, Edw ards on 149, Tamada on 139, a nd Hayden a nd Checa on I 17 and I IS, respectively. 2 S0CC GRAND PRIX The first lap was the most varied a nd e xcit ing. Pedrosa le d away only to be firm ly nailed by d e Angelis into tu rn one. At the ne xt corner, Po rt o pushed t hrough o nly to be consigned to t hird at the hairpin a little wa y furt he r along, as Ped ro sa led aga in. T hings were settled for good on lap two, whe n Po rt o regained th e lead , put his head d ow n, an d started to stretch away ine xo rably. De Ange lis too k two more laps before he go t ahead of Pedrosa, by which time Po rto was almost Why Not Ro§§i? Phillip Island was in a hard-to-please mood , as usual, and the first hour of practice was damp to add to its unpredictability. Settings are critical to have good feel on the fast corners, and a fresh wind also made the task of holding an accurate line more difficult, though this eased over the three days of the meeting. One of many having trouble getting that final feeling was Valentino Rossi, who was fastest on the first day but shaded by Sete Gibernau on the second. "I expected a better time, but I don't have a good feeling with the bike today," said Rossi. "We made some changes that didn't work at I00 percent." Still playing no-speaks with press conference table neighbor Gibernau , Rossi insisted that his first goal was to win the championship rather than the race . "If I can't win the race, I will see if I can control the situation," he said. Basically he needed to finish one place behind Gibernau to take the title. "I want to win the title here because if it goes to the last race, it is always a gamble ." Gibernau was upbeat. His task was simple - he just needed to win the race. "I've been comfortable with the bike right from the first session, "he said. "We've been able to concentrate on working in one direction, back to normal. My pace is fast, my rhythm is good and I've chosen a tire . I think we're for anything." Gibernau was just a tenth faster than Rossi ; four-tenths on the other side was Loris Caplrossl, his Ducati on the front row for only the second time this year. "We have to make sure we enjoy this moment." Capirossi said. "We've worked hard to improve the bike, and we've made the front end better. I can push really hard in the fast corners ." His top speed was 204.6 mph. Colin Edwards was barely a hundredth off the front row, after running smooth and fast pretty much throughout at a favorite circuit. "I'm really motivated to do well here, " said Edwards, who is half Australian. Times were close, with the top II within a second of pole, itself just a shade slower than Rossi's pole last year. Makoto Tamada was fast and aggressive throughout, alongside Edwards; Alex Barros completed the second row after a productive couple of days. Max Biaggi and Troy Bayliss straddled Alex Hofmann's Kawasaki on the next row, the German's best so far on a bike much improved with the recent adoption (in Portugal) of Magneti Marelli engine management electronics . Marco Melandri led the next row from ShinyaNakano and Ruben Xaus. Others were still battling for those crucial settings : Carlos Checa, Nicky Hayden and Jeremy McWilliams on the next row. Hayden might have improved but ran off on his fast lap on qualifying tires. "That was a terrible session - from the start the bike just didn't feel right," Hayden said. Gregorio Lavilla, substituting for Kenny Roberts Jr., led row six, faster than Suzuki regular teammate John Hopkins, with Norick Abe alongside. All24 entrants qualified. 1.5 seco nd s clear. T his pair carried on draw ing ahead of the pursuit and apa rt from o ne ano the r fo r the rest of the race, finally en ding up with Po rt o six se conds clear of his yo ung rival. Behi nd them Pedro sa had been riding ca re fully, Poggiali following closely witho ut even trying to attack - until he powered past down the straight as t hey started the 22nd lap. From then on , Ped ro sa followed tamely to th e flag - and the World Championship. Nie to and Debon crashed out together the first time arou nd MG corners (Nie to w as squeezed onto the paint on the inside , where he slipped off.) Deban hur ried ly remounted , but after that there was a dearth of midfield act ion, wi th Elias in fifth losing ground fro m the sta rt . The int e rest came from Davies, having a storming ride after his best ever qualification , in 10th. The Aprilia privateer finished lap o ne eigh th , behind Roby Rolfe 's factory Honda, then passed him one lap late r and closed up o n Aoyama's similar bike ahead . As he moved forward , the slow-starting de Puniet came flying past on his quest for t he fro m , passing Aoyama o n lap four o nly to crash ou t on the ne xt one. Now it w as D avie s' t u rn to take sixth from t he Japane se rider, two lap s furt he r along. He wasn't finishe d yet, clos ing to within a seco nd of Elias before ha lf distance , be fore the pace start ed to te ll and he dropped away again. At the finish, Elias was fully half a m inute behind Pedro sa, w ith Dav ies 10 seconds behind for the best result of his caree r. Pedrosa's lead is now an unassailable 36 points. He has 292, Porto 25 6. De Puniet lost ground on 198, Elias has I79 and de Angel is 147. 12SCC GRAND PRIX The first race started in bright sunshine. Lo ca te lli started well , Stoner took th e le ad before they were halfway round, but no body was really surprised to see www.cyclenews.com the decisions." Speaking generally, he said, "If we retai n grass runoff, the n you need a very big area for safety. In some places you do not have the room ." Challenged that Philli p Island did have space to spare , he named turn e ight (on the fast run back from Siberia) as "one place w here, if we had the same small gravel trap as last year, you could not be sure that a fallen rider would not slide as far as the tire barrier. And that is on dry grass - wet grass is much w orse. " Danis con tinued: "It's ve ry difficult to say that the new gravel traps are a mistake. We w ill examine them care fullyagain after the race to see if there is a prob lem - that they are not smooth enough, or not level with the runoff." Ap rilia's MotoGP project is up in the air while negotiations for Piaggio's takeover of the cash-strapped Italian manufacturer drag on. "We will continue for sure in the 12Scc and 2S0cc classes." racing director Jan Witteveen confirmed. "But at this time, we simply don't know what is going to happen with the MotoGP project. Not hing has been decided." Witteveen hoped to have had an answer by the weekend of the Australian GP but had heard nothing as the meeting began. The project has an annual budget of 30-million Euro . The decision will also determine the fate of the Mk2 Aprilia RS3 "Cube" MotoGP bike. This has been undergo ing tests allyear with Marcellino Lucchi but has never raced "because we didn't have the budget: ' accordi ng to Witteveen. The new engine is still a 120degree, (even-firing) inline triple but is architecturally revised from the first motor, w hich was deve loped in conjunction with racing car manufacturers Cosworth. In par· ticular, the output shaft has bee n moved to improve overall geometry. "It's a second a lap faster than our race bike ," Witteveen said. "But I won't be happy until we are winning." Troy Bayliss is in serious talks with Harald Eckl, hoping to join the Kawasaki MotoGP team after being dumped by Ducati. Bayliss broke the bad news to his countrymen on the eve of the Australian GP that he is looking for a job for next year after Ducati had not renewed his contract. Th is confirmed his words in Malaysia, when the team was still saying: "We haven't decided yet about Troy . he is still on the list." "This is the final kick in the teeth - but I'm taking it on the Continued on poge 17 CYCLE NEWS • OCT OBER 27, 2004 15

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