Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

"I'm happy for my first podium," he said in his native Italian. De Puniet took the drop from first to third on the final lap in stride. He said that on the last lap he was in first place, "and I do a little bit of mistake and I lost two places. In this condition, to finish third is not too bad because I don't like this weather, this track." Mika Kallio gave his native Finland its first victory in 30 years with his first win in the I25cc class. The Red Bull rider passed Master Aspar's Hector Faubel (Aprilia) two laps from the end and beat him to the stripe by .008 of a second. The win also gave Kallio the 125cc World Championship lead over Marco Simoncelli, 10th today, 45-31. MOTOGP Gibernau got the jump and had nearly two seconds after one lap, but would his shoulder hold up? He'd been the picture of pain and misery all weekend, especially after crashing on Saturday. By the midpoint of the race, when his lead was still over a second, it was clear he'd been bluffing. "I controlled Barros very good with a two-second lead and the next guy was I I seconds behind me," Gibernau said. Barros had taken over the pursuing position on the second lap and never let Gibernau out of his Sight. The pair was superior to the rest, and by lap 14, Gibernau had 10 seconds on Rossi in third, with Biaggi just behind. The white flags had come out to Signal the pits were open on lap eight, but no one was interested, "I don't think to stop because you lose 40 to 50 seconds and the race is basically over," Rossi said. The rain was sporadic and didn't uniformly cover the 2.98-mile track, with parts of the course remaining dry while others were full wet. Judging the corner was up to the first rider in, "I wasn't braking and was hardly even touching my knee on the floor," Gibernau said. "But when you have slick tires, and its f"16#king pouring with rain and nobody tells you, its impossible not to crash." So he did. Hopkins crashed later the same lap. Brief'Y··· Kawasaki was down one rider after Alex Hofmann took himself out of the Portugal race weekend, and likely a few more, with a silly crash during a promotional stunt. Taking part in a short demonstration ride in the center of Estoril, the Gennan got on the gas too early and was unceremoniously highsided, much to the amusement of the assembled crowd and media Less amused was team management after he was diagnosed with two broken bones in his left wrist. "I am so disappointed and frustrated," a red-faced Hofmann said. ':titter last weekend's result at Jerez, I was so looking forward to coming here and scoring another good finish. I just can't believe that a silly mistake dUring a promotional event has left me unable to race this weekend and facing a real fight back to fitness for the next race in China." He continued: "If there were any way I could race then I'd definitely be out there, but the scaphoid fracture makes it difficult to hold the handlebars at a standstill, never mind at race pace. Estoril is a very physical track, and my wrist simply isn't up to the job of muscling the bike around here." Normal recovery time for a broken wrist is six to eight weeks, putting him out for more than a few races. "Too many top racers have ended their careers through coming back too early after fracturing their scaphoid, wihich is wihy we decided that the best course of action would be to withdraw from this weekend's race, rather than risk further injury," he said. Speculation that Hofmann would be replaced for China was squashed by team manager Harold EckI, wiho said Kawasaki wouldn't seek to field a replacement. Repsol Honda's Max Biaggi was prevented from taking the high road by the overzealous Italian press horde. Trying to explain his downfield placing in early practice, the Roman said the RC21 IV was a littie better than it had been in Jerez, but that "we still need to work. We need to improve." What the specific problem was, Biaggi wouldn't say. "1 don't want to speak of problems, but being seventh, fifth or sixth is not my position. Expert eyes can say, 'What are you doing down there?'" When it was suggested he was close, he replied, "Close is onetenth or two-tenths, not when you are one second. Again it is one second," he said of Friday's combined practice wihen he finished nearly a second off Alex Barros, the rider he replaced on the works squad. The suggestion he revert to last year's bike was met critically. "It's no longer there," he said. Growing increasingly frustrated, he said, "What more can Isay? We are trying, trying, trying. We'll see. If we improve, I'll be happy. If I don't improve, I won't be happy. Watch the position." Eventually, Biaggi told the crowd they were going to write what they wanted anyway and politely excused himself. Colin Edwards knew something was wrong, he just didn't know wihat. The vagueness in the front end of his Gauloises Yamaha M1 got worse at such a slow rate that he couldn't pinpoint the problem. It was only after Friday moming's session ended, with Edwards 3.5 seconds off the pace, that the discovery was made. "1 had a slow puncture in the front," the tall Texan said. "Came in, and instead of 32 pounds, I had like 14 pounds in the front." Edwards said he'd been well off the pace when former teammate Sete Gibemau came past. In two comers, Edwards lost a second to the Spaniard. "The bike felt like a piece of shit. Couldn't tum it. It was weird. Time was running o~t. There was like fIVe minutes left, so I didn't really have time to come in and do anything. So I'm just going to do a couple of more laps, deal with it when Iget back." Edwards said it was the first time in his career that he'd ever had a front-tire leak. "It was weird. Couldn't carry any comer speed, couldn't get into the comer. All that work we did, the bike felt so good, and now it feels like shit." Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden was unapologetic about crashing out of a certain third place in the season-opening Spanish GP. "It would have been so easy to give up and let those guys go completely with a big lead over third, but you work all winter so hard and you put in so many laps and so much time," he said, and it was paying off. "I actually, the two laps before I crashed I took like three-tenths out of them the lap before and like six-tenths in two laps. I know to think I'm going to reel them back in as a long shot. but as a racer you're believing that. I'd talked about with the team before the race that those two are going to be fireworks late, especially Sete in Spain. I just wanted to keep pushing. I won't even apologize for even trying hard and wanting to leam. I want to beat those guys, and if every time the pace gets hot I just back off and cruised home in third, I'm never going to make that next step. Now sitting here, boy those 16 points sure would be nice. But hey, it's old news. Just move on. The rest of the weekend had gone really well and been right there. [We got aJ good start and raced with them a bit early. That's how it goes." It stopped going at the end of Friday's free practice wihen he had an engine failure in his Re211 v. "It was actually on the cool-down lap. It was put in a new engine and they're looking into wihat happened. I don't think they know what caused it or anything. Just an odd I!ttie thing that never happens. We got plenty of engines. Shouldn't be a problem." A confluence of factors produced an inordinate number of highsides and near highsides in Estoril. First was the cool breeze blowing off the nearby Atlantic and the attendant dust that coated the track. Then there is the preponderance of right-hand tums, nine of the 13 on the 2.9B-mile track, giving the left side of the multicompound tires too few enough opportunities to heat up. And finally, there were the new fuel regulations that have made the MotoGP 9905 peakier and more like their SOOcc two-stroke predecessors. Crashers included Sete Gibernau, Toni Elias, Ruben Xaus, Nicky Hayden arid Marco Melandri, with Kenny Roberts running off the track twice in the first session, Carlos Checa off track in the third session and Max Biaggi in the kitty litter early in qualifying. None of the spills were as frightening as the highside that slapped Camel Honda's Troy Bayliss to earth in Friday afternoon's practice. The former World Superbike Champion landed on his helmet and shoulder but was quickly up and retumed to the pits to complete the session on his second bike. "I can't really say much about today because I don't remember too much," he said after finishing 16th in Friday's combined times. "I crashed, and then retumed to the box but don't remember the incident. I hit the ground with my left shoulder; it was a big hit, but as it wasn't hurting that much, I went out again. Ithink I need a bit of a rest, but tomorrow I'll ride again because this morning we did a good job, riding consistently fast, and I want to make some good progress also tomorrow." Following the session, Bayliss was checked out in the mobile clinic where it was detennined he didn't need a CT scan. His left shoulder was hurt and he had some memory loss that retumed in the hours after the crash. "You just have to be a Iittie bit cautious with that left side the first couple of laps," Gauloises Yamaha's Colin Edwards said. "With the race tires it doesn't seem like you can go out and just chunk some good laps in. You've got to do two easy laps to get everything up to pace. and then it's all right. Once it gets up to temperature, it's fine. It's just getting it there. It's not easy. Some of the tires, they've got a littie harder rubber on the left." Edwards' 2004 teammate Sete Gibemau said, "We're all trying to get the best out of the left-hand comers, because they get pretty cold, pretty fast." This was said after he re-injured his left shoulder in a Saturday moming crash. A program of therapy, injections and ultrasound had Gibemau's shoulder on the mend until his untimely crash. "There's a difference, because this morning wihen I woke up, it was actually getting quite better and I was not having to get shots or anesthetic or nothing; I was just with pills," he said. ':o>-,fter the crash, even though I've always said I'm not keen on that type of therapy, if it wouldn't be for that, I would have not been able to go through qualifying. It's quite a lot worse, unluckily." The new 22-liter gas-tank regulation hit Yannaha harder than Honda. "Especially we need to improve in the engine delivery," Valentino Rossi lannented. "Our engine is too aggressive and not smooth as Honda This problem with the engine anrive, also the bike become more difficult to ride and sometimes move in acceleration a littie bit too much and not possible to open the throttle. We need to work in that way. For sure the fuel regulation is for us become a Iittie bit more difficult. We work a lot last year, but this year is like we start over." Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden found a more subtle difference. "For me, it hasn't really been a problem," he said. "Some guys have had problems on the Honda. On the bottom, it's jumpier. It's a little bit, but it's actually not been much of an issue for me. I've got some problems, but that's really not one of them." Hayden was fined $700 for exiting the pit lane in qualifying wihen it was closed with a red flag and red lights, an infraction of article 1.22.2 of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix Regulations. The decision of the race direction was final and no appeal was lodged. Marco Meland'; didn't always know how fast he was going in preseason testing. Nor did he get a chance to measure himself against the others. That was part of the plan the team prescribed to bring the young Italian up to speed. "Every time a rider got in front of him, we pulled him in," crew chief Fabrizio Cecchini said, "because then Marco would become too excited. Even if he doesn't feel right with bike, he'll try to pass him or stay with him and Continued on poge 25 CYCLE NEWS • APRIL 27, 2005 23

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