Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

MOTOGP Continued from poge 19 the crash was "long overdue. It was my fault, my mistake. I had just done two really good laps, and I thought, 'Okay,' and I'd done a good lap and made a mistake on the second lap and I was still faster, so I thought, 'This lap's going to be good and clean.' I was about half a meter off the line. A bit wide. And I was in there hot. 'I can get it back, I can pull it back.' It was just a little bit dirty, and I hit that little bump; Once it went over the back side of that bump, it just went away, This thing is always so good about giving you loads of feedback, but I think once I hit that bump and it kind of extended it, it was all over with. Kind of knew going in there early this might not turn out. I got in there deep." Edwards fought to keep the front wheel on the ground the entire first day. "We just expected to kind of come here with Brno's bike and say, 'Okay, we'll be all right,''' he said. "But Brno is a lot of corner speed and a lot of midthrottle, and there is more hammering it out of the corners. With what we've done, we're fighting a little bit of wheelie. That's our biggest issue at the moment - just can't keep the front wheel on the ground. Any time you put the rear wheel closer to you, it's going to get that." Edwards gave Barber Motorsports Park a thumbs-up as a GP venue. The Gauloises Yamaha rider recently ran more than a dozen hot laps of the Birmingham track for a photo shoot of Yamaha's new YZF R-I LE. "They'd have to do a little bit of work," Edwards said. "I think the guardrail's pretty close, especially coming off the left-right-Ieft." That point aside, "It was way better than Sachsenring, personally." Edwards went on: "I think it could have a Grand Prix. It's a little narrow. They just need to go there with a bit of imagination and realize, 'What if somebody does run off here?' The guardrail's way too close. Turn one's not great, but I honestly... yeah, okay. You can say that about any racetrack, you're going to find areas that are not safe. At this track [Motegi], you come out of two and the damn Armco runs into the track. And I'm sitting there going, 'It's the same as turn six at Laguna, what you have.' Nobody even bitches about that because we've been here for so long. It's retarded." The Barber track remains interested in hosting a U.S. GP. Following July's successful Red Bull USGP at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Gene Hallman, CEO of the Bruno Event Team, which holds the promotional rights to Barber, said: "The best way to characterize it is that we want to keep it as a possible option for discussion with Doma. This year was a tremendous success from a spectator and crowd standpoint for Laguna Seca, and I think possibly this country could support two GPs. We're not convinced it's the thing for us to do yet. We're continuing a dialogue with Dorna. They have a three-year exclusivity [contract] with Laguna Seca for a GP in this country. We recognize that. Beyond that, we would like to keep the lines of communication open." 20 --Round 12 September 18, 200S World Championship Road Racing Series More of the same for ValentIno RossI in 2006? Vanquishing his rivals handily when they're not beating themselves? Not so fast, says Rossi. "The bigger rival, the new rival is [Danij Pedrosa," he said of the diminutive 2SOcc World Champion who will join Nicky Hayden on the Repsol Honda team next year. "Not the bigger rival. I say the new Pedrosa. And Honda bet a lot on him, make a smaller bike especially for him, just for him and they try with him. Anyway, he has a lot of nesults in the past; he's won already two championships. For sure, he needs experience of the first year." "Very surprised. Good surprise, of course." That was the reaction of a beaming Hiroshi Yamada, Bridgestone's motorcycle racing manager, after the Japanese brand swept the three fastest times in Friday's combined MotoGP practice. John Hopkins, Loris Capirossi and Kenny Roberts Jr. took the top three spots, with World Champion Valentino Rossi down in fourth. "We brought a new generation of the tire and we modify a little bit for Brno and we had a good result," Yamada said. "We have here a new tire which is based on this tire, but another improvement of the combination of the compound and the construction. And yesterday some riders try this tire, for example Capirossi, Checa, maybe John [Hopkins] a little bit, not so much. And this morning almost all riders try this tire and they prefer very much this tire. And I think they used this tire for the race." Yamada said the improvement was in the traditional areas, construction and compound, "and the target should be always better grip and more durability. This target doesn't change." The new-generation tire proved durable in Saturday morning's practice session. Capirossi recorded his best time on the 18th of 19 laps on the same tire. "I think at the moment Loris has very good confidence for this tire, because he used the same tire yesterday afternoon and we suggested to test another new one, but he said no: 'I want to concentrate only on this tire because it is so great.'" Kawasaki often uses a different tire than the Suzukis and Ducatis, Yamada said. "Maybe their machine is more high-speed during the comer, big radius, and they don't want to slow down for the corner. The Suzuki and the Ducati are quite similar at the moment. Sometime also Loris and Carlos [Checa] are a different choice." Motegi is considered Bridgestone's home track, not so much because they test here, but because of their dominance in the All Nippon Superbike Championship. "Michelin has one rider, but not so much," Yamada said. "From this point, we have an advantage. We have many data from the Superbike. We can transfer this technology to the MotoGP tire. Of course, the power is different, but the result is we can use for the MotoGP tires." Yamada said Bridgestone would keep its cur· rent three teams - Ducati, Suzuki and Kawasaki - for 2006, and may expand. "We SEPTEMBER 28,2005 • CYCLE NEWS haven't decided yet," he said. The problem is production; to increase the number of teams would put a strain on the production capacity. As it is, they bring about 1000 tires to each race. First-tum melees each of the past two years were enough to convince race officials to move the Twin Ring Motegi start line back 80 meters. Prior to the change, riders at the front would arrive at the turn-one right-hander without slowing down, while those at the back of the grid had to brake hard. Suzuki's John Hopkins was docked a one·race penalty for causing the 2003 pileup and also got caught up, along with the other three Americans and two others, in the 2004 fiasco. "They moved the start back and everything, so that's helped out a little bit," Hopkins said. "So I think it makes it more of a corner, more so because you have to brake." "It's so close to turn one that you get sucked in there and turn one gets tight on you," Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden said, "I thought last year they needed to move it back so you got a real braking zone. You didn't really brake before. Yeah, you didn't really brake. It just gets tight down there the way it turns in on you and you run out of room qUick." Confusion about chassis choice continued to reign in the Honda world at Motegi. Who was using which evolution frame? Nicky Hayden said he was using the same frame he'd had all year. Hayden said he didn't know which frame his teammate Max Biaggi was using. "I'm not sure, he changes a lot," Hayden began, "but as far as I know he's on the latest spec." One rider whose choice was clear was Marco Melandri. The Italian was using the new chassis, the same one as Hayden, for the first time. "The main difference is the swingarm and the link between the swingarm and the rear shock," the Italian said. "The old one, the link was upstairs; the new shock is downstairs, like the HRC bike. For myself, it looks like it will be better especially to go out from the corner. I lose traction before because I am very small, so it was difficult to put the weight behind like the other riders did. So with this bike, the feeling is to be more soft the bike and the traction, when I open the throttle looks like a little bit better. I think in one lap the difference is not so big, but I hope it will be bigger for the race distance. Because it looks like in Bmo, after three or four laps, I start to have so much traction, and I was braking hard to try to follow the other riders. But after 10 laps, I finish also the front tire and I was finished." MoviStar Honda's Dani Pedrosa crashed an unprecedented three times in one Grand Prix, and that was before qualifying. "The bad luck continues," the World Champion said after qualifying seventh, his worst effort since a similar placing at Mugello, a race he went on to win. "This morning we were improving bit by bit, but at the end, I crashed for the third time in this Grand Prix, losing the front end and bashing my shoulder again. This has never happened to me before, but at least this afternoon I was able to complete a few laps and get on the second row of the grid, which is important. With so many crashes and so much pain, we haven't been able to test the setup. I'm obviously finding it hard to ride, because I'm trying to move as little as possible on the bike, and that limits your riding." Things could quickly get messy if Yamaha tries to circumvent its agreement with A1tadis for Valentino Rossi to run in Gauloises colors next year. "The matter regarding Yamaha and Valentino Rossi is now in the hands of our attorneys, and we are waiting for a response from Yamaha," said Dany Hindenoch, communications officer for A1tadis. On behalf of Gauloises and Fortuna, two of the family of more than 20 brands of tobacco owned by Altadis, he said: "The situation is one that anyone can understand. A1tadis agreed with Yamaha to sponsor the factory Yamaha team, It was understood that Yamaha did not have Valentino Rossi contracted for the 2006 season, but it was also understood that if Rossi signed, it would be with the factory team. The possibility that Rossi would go to another team was an accepted risk, but not that he would ride for Yamaha on a 'private' team. There are only two acceptable conclusions to this matter for Altadis: that Rossi returns to the Gauloises Yamaha team in 2006, or that Yamaha compensates A1tadis. Until this matter is resolved satisfactorily, all of our involvement in the MotoGP class, both as Gauloises and Fortuna, are frozen. Fortuna's agreements in the 2S0 class are not affected." Red Bull KTM lodged a protest against Thomas Luthi in the I25cc race, alleging engine infractions. Race Direction disallowed the protest, saying it was unfounded. KTM team manager Harald Bartol said the protest was not directed against Luthi, whose crash ended the I25cc GP prematurely, but "as a catalyst to start a discussion on the current rules for when a race is stopped early because of crash," Bartol said. "I think the sport needs to clarify this rule, which states that the race result will be declared as per the poSitions on the previously completed lap. The race director, Paul Butler, today has agreed that we need to have this discussion, and that will now take place." The I25cc race was red-flagged on the 16th of 21 laps when Luthi crashed coming onto the front straight. Bartol says that the rule needs to take into account whether a rider who is the primary cause of a race being stopped early should earn his normal championship points. "Obviously there could be a situation where the World Championship could be decided in favor of a rider, and not just a KTM rider, because of this rule," Bartol added. "Perhaps we should have an FIM rule like the World Speedway Championship, where the rider who causes a race stoppage is eliminated from the result. I just want a fair rule that is applied equally for all riders."

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