Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

The newest and most lavish circuit on the GP calendar may be long - at 3.27 miles, second only to Assen and Brno, and with a longer straight even than Catalunya and Mugello - but the F I-friendly layout of Shanghai was more reminiscent of other new tracks, like car-park Valencia, and far from popular with the MotoGP riders. At least two corners demanded first gear, including a very acute hairpin at the end of the flat-out straight, while two other corners turned IaO-degree turns into something more like 270 degrees, made up like hairpins with the top U bent over sideway. The longer straight - .74 of a mile - not only ended with a hairpin, but started with one of those skewed hairpins. so there was who it was," Rossi continued. ''At the end, he was faster than me, but I had enough of an advantage. That was a very important win for me - my first in the wet on the M I Yamaha. To beat Gibernau and [Alex] Barros in the wet is very important. Jacque is not a big rival for the championship, but to lead most of the race and finish second is no good for me, so I kept pushing to the end." Telef6nica MoviStar Honda's Marco Melandri was third, I S seconds adrift but also finishing strongly. He moved through in the final laps, overtaking teammate Gibernau on the last lap for his second rostrum of his first Honda season - a result that put him second overall on points. "I'm very happy," Melandri said. "I qualified well in the dry, but in the wet this morning, I was not comfortable, and also in the early laps. But during the race, I started to feel better, and at the end I was overtaking people. Now I am anxious for my first race win." Gibernau was two seconds down and could not have been more depressed, after a hard-compound rear tire he had not tried before had a mystery vibration. "I did not want to use that tire, but Michelin persuaded us," Gibernau said. "Then I felt the vibration on the warmup lap. I wanted to change the wheelan the line, but we did not have a backup tire avail- able. On the first corner, already I ran wide, with hardly any rear grip, and people were already coming past me." It was a bad result for a rider who is usually strong in bad conditions. "It's only because I am good in the wet I was able to finish where I did," Gibernau said. "To be honest, I didn't even think I was in the top 10, and I wasn't sure I could finish at all, the vibration and the lack of grip were so bad. It's going to be tough to make up a 37-point deficit on Valentino now, but it's always hard to win a World Championship." After crossing the line, he pulled straight to the side of the track. "I didn't feel I could finish another lap," he said. MoviStar team boss Fausto Gresini explained that Michelin had strongly recommended the tire, "and as a team we decided to go with that recommendation. Sete did want to change after the Sighting lap, but one lap is not enough to assess a hard tire, and we decided it might improve during the race. Tires are aiways a gamble in situations like this." The last-minute change suggested by Michelin had been because of fears that if the track dried, the 200-mph-plus speeds on the track's two long straights would destroy the _ softer wets that l~ Gibernau, among others, preferred. "Some riders, though not Gibernau, tried the tire in the morning," said Michelin boss Nicolas Gaubert. "It was not so bad in heavy wet conditions and would have lasted if the track had dried. In fact it stayed wet, but we decided to be conservative, for safety." Rossi and all but Ruben Xaus and Troy Bayliss had used that harder tire, he said. There was nothing visibly wrong with Gibernau's tire, but he admitted it was possible it was a duff tire with a manufacturing fault. "We will test it to see," he said. Repsol Honda's Max Biaggi was a close fifth, after another disappointing race; second substitute rider Jurgen van den Goorbergh on the Konika Minolta Honda was just two seconds behind in a fine sixth. "I could have taken more risks to attack Biaggi, and if it had been for a rostrum position, I would have," said the happy Dutchman, who split with his Ducati World Supersport team the weekend before. "I am still not familiar with the bike to push it that hard, but after two years away, I am very happy with the result. I always said that if I had a good bike, I can run with the fastest - and I have proved it." Suzuki's John Hopkins was seventh, fighting back through after running strongly in the early laps only to run off the track. Five seconds down came Gauloises Yamaha's Colin Edwards, Honda's Repsol Hayden in the no chance for a good rider to use his skill for a faster approach. Only engine power counted. "The straight is very fast, but the rest of the circuit is too tight, and too slow," Rossi said. "Some corners are very long - Ii ke the first corner. It seems to never finish. With the long corners, It is quite difficult to assess the line. For a MotoGP bike, we need more open cor- ners, like Malaysia." He complained also of a section where the motorcycle track devi- ates from the FI circuit. "There is a big bump there," he said. Sete Gibernau said: "It's fun, like sliding a motorcycle around a car park ~ but it is not a good racetrack for a MotoGP bike." Nicky Hayden, veteran of scrubby U.S. circuits, wouldn't go that far. "I've ridden worse," he said. ''And the surface is real sweet. But there are two firstgear corners." All the riders had been thwarted by the fact that the circuit is not on the PlayStation MotoGP game - a common way of preparing for new circuits. It was, of course, the same for everybody. One difficulty at a new circuit is guessing at potential gearing, with nothing to go on but a map, which doesn't show the relatively minor but still significant changes in elevation. Others accepted that it was a bit different from other tracks. Marlboro Ducati rider Carlos Checa compared it with the ultratight Sachsenring. where "you are at maximum lean for a long time with the throttle closed," he said. "To do well at a new track, you really need to have a good Friday, because that is when you must learn everything," Max Biaggi said. Sadly, Friday was far from good, with first free practice delayed for 2 1/2 hours (see below), and the belated afternoon session hit by drenching rain. By contrast, the magnificent facilities at the $400-million Shanghai circuit impressed everybody on arrival. The vast pit bUildings and grandstands are hugely imposing; the area covered sprawls over a reclaimed swamp. A covered grandstand overlooks the start-finish straight, the pit complex is on the other side, and the two sides are linked by two massive overhead structures. joining towers at each end, and containing the media center and other offices. The medical center would eclipse the average small country hospital. and there is even a separate aircraft control tower elsewhere Continued on fXlge 39 CYCLE NEWS. MAY 11, 2005 37

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