Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

MOTOGP - Round 10 July 31, 2005 Briefly... Continued from poge 17 was a con~ndrum, though not in those words. "We already did the new asphalt in Donington maybe two years ago because before it was full of bumps. Now it's flat, it's good, but don't have enough grip. We don't know why. Maybe because of some problem with a lot of water. On the track remain too much water and is difficult for the rain tire to have the right pressure on the surface." Rossi made it clear on Thursday that he understood his place in history. Should he win on Sunday, he'd equal Mike Hailwood with 76 career victories, with 13 more in the premier class, and he'd trail only Giacomo Agostini's 122 and Angel Nieto's 90. "For me is never very important the numbers, but when you arrive at the same victory the same as 'Mike the Bike,' anyway is very important." He's already surpassed Mick Doohan, Phil Read and Jim Redman, with only two to catch. "I don't know if it's possible to arrive to Angel [Nieto] also. Angel is only 15. Maybe, yes. Agostini is more. The first motivation is always the championship. But for sure arrive at the same number as Other crashers included Camel Honda's Troy Bayliss, Marlboro Ducati's Carlos Checa and Blata WCM's James Ellison. A first-turn pileup eliminated Team Roberts' Shane Byrne and the Kawasakis of home-country hero Alex Hofmann and teammate Olivier Jacque. "Shakey [Byrne] being late on the brakes is not the reason we crashed," Hofmann said, instead shifting the blame to wildcard Jacque, who had rear-ended him. "I haven't got eyes in the back of my head." The final four finishers were the Fortuna Yamaha duo of Toni Elias and Ruben Xaus, d'Antin Pramac's Robbie Rolfo and Blata WCM's Franco Battaini, the Italian scoring his first point of the season. World Champion Dani Pedrosa survived a fifth-lap collision with Jorge Lorenzo to win the 2S0cc GP. The impact knocked Lorenzo off and damaged Pedrosa's Telef6nica MoviStar Honda 250, but not terminally. Within two laps, he'd regained his spot on his march to the front. Lap 12 of 29 ended with Pedrosa in the front, a spot he wouldn't relinqUish. '~nother perfect weekend after everything that has happened," the Spaniard said after his fifth win in nine tries. MS Aprilia's Alex de Angelis was second at an interval of 8.940 seconds. "Really, it was impossible to take the pace of Pedrosa," the Italian conceded. The excitement came in the battle for third, which went to the stripe. Telef6nica MoviStar Honda's Hiroshi Aoyama narrowly edged Team Scot's Andrea Dovizioso's Honda, with Aprilia Aspar's Sebastian Porto a shadow fifth. The trio was covered by .273 of a second. Pedrosa stretched his championship lead to 50 points, 181-131, over Casey Stoner. The Australian just lost out on sixth to Randy de Puniet. Red Bull KTM's Mika Kallio had a reversal in his recent run of bad luck in the red-flag shortened 125cc GP late on Sunday morning. The Finn was heading a tight quartet when the race was stopped on the 21 st of 25 scheduled laps, with scoring reverting to the end of the 20th. "I was lucky today," Kallio admitted after his second win of the season. "I was still very confident about the last laps because I think my bike was fast and my lap time was very constant all the time. Of course, there was a big race behind me, and anything can happen." The gap to Elit Grand Prix Honda's Thomas Luthi in second place was . I34 of a second when the race ended prematurely. Manuel Poggiali had run just off the track and crashed, but his Metis Racing Gilera was left in the middle of the track, forcing the hand of the marshals. "My plan was for the last lap, and now he have no last lap," Luthi said of his strategy. 18 AUGUST 10, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS Hailwood is a pleasure." Later he said, "I'm very happy, because I never see Hailwood race, unfortunately, but a lot of people say to me maybe was the best, and arrive now we are one less than him. So not the same level, but already 75 victories are a lot. If Iarrive to him or overtake him, Iarrive on the podium of all-time, and is a great, great pleasure for sure." Gibernau. "It's tight, it's the tightest maybe racetrack in the Grand Prixs. We don't have the throttle open much here. It's just a matter of needling through the comers and trying to keep the corner speed high and making the bike agile and easy to ride. And the end of the racetrack is maybe the only part where you can maybe make up a little bit more time. The first part, the more you try, the slower you go and more with a MotoGP. The MotoGP bike, the bikes are so fast now that a little too much throttle can bring a lot of problems. And that's the tight part in the track that's going to make you make small errors that you pay throughout the race or in qualifying," Gibernau said. Rossi's take was that "the first part is quite strange and is too slow for the MotoGP." The rest of the track has too many left-hand corners, he believes, and hard braking on the downhills taxes the suspension. "Last year, for example, we had a lot of problem with the fork. Go down, have the compression, hard braking and the front is quite soft for the first part. So is difficult to manage the bike. Have some corners that I don't like a lot. But anyway, is a track," he said. Television viewers may have noticed a new feature on the MotoGP broadcasts. Based on GPS technology, a new system was introduced that showed the riders' precise locations on the track in real time. The transmitter-receiver is located either on the bike or inside the back protector of the rider's Colin Edwards In flames is the enduring image from Sachsenring. It came aboard the Aprilia Cube in his first year in GPs, 2003. "It's funny because whenever I think of Sachsenring Ialways think of the f-ing barbecue [that happened during the first free practice session]," he said. "It's kind of where Igot initiated. But it's a racing incident. You don't sit there and think it's life altering or some shit like that. The thing caught on fire, went alright." The AA KyaJami Grand Prix circuit near Johannesburg, South Africa, could host a World Superbike race as soon as 2006. The former World Superbike and GP facility was recently sold to the Imperial Group and MJF Associates, a group headed by Jim Redman, former South African Champion Mike Fogg, and Dave McGregor. MJF will run the circuit, with Imperial concentrating on business opportunities. The track last hosted a motorcycle Grand Prix in 1992 and a Formula One GP in 1993. Redman said in Germany that he'd been contacted by Dorna about a GP in 2006, but that the calendar was already set. So the discussion has moved to World Superbike; which is expected to add two races next year: Kyalami and Mexico City. Very few riders put the Sachsenring circuit on their list of favorite tracks. The second shortest on the GP calendar after Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the 3.67- kilometer (2.28-mile) track in the former East Germany has two personalities, according to Sete leathers. The real-time information is beamed by satellite to international TV feed, where's it's converted into graphics and broadcast. Four riders carried the system in Germany: Valentino Rossi, Colin Edwards, Nicky Hayden and Shakey Byrne. Valentino Rossi never lost his sense of humor through the struggles of coming 13th on the first day. "The part where Iam faster in the track is the part between the hospitality and the box, with the scooter. Over there is not so bad. but the rest is a disaster," the impish Italian joked. Indeed, Rossi suffered only his second crash of the season when the front washed out in the tum-two left-hander. "This morning I start with the good feeling from Donington and I start to push to ride quite fast, but was too fast, because Icrash a few laps," he said. The track was partly to blame, he said. ':AJready this track is very bad in my point of view. Every year is worse because now we have a lot of bumps. The comer where we have a lot of crashes last year, this year is worse. Have more bumps and is very difficult," he said. Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden celebrated his 24th birthday with his second pole position and a small party in the Repsol Honda hospitality unit on Saturday evening. On a track with 10 lefts and four rights, Hayden continued to prove that, at heart, he's still a dirt tracker. "You know, sometimes I Continued on page 21

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