Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

track, but also because many people were saying so many things all those three weeks when I was injured, and always I keep quiet," he said, Pedrosa said the race was difficult because practice hadn't produced a viable setup, He watched Stoner crash, and then he pushed to the front, passing Jorge Lorenzo on the fifth of 25 laps. ')\nd in this moment, I had a normal race behind him," said Pedrosa, who added that the win was possible because "he was faster in the corners, but my engine today was not so bad." Porto took the loss in stride. "Every lap I see on TV, on the straight Dani is behind me and I try to push in the last two laps," he said. "But anyway, second position is not so bad. The bike was not so perfect today, the engine." Lorenzo was 8.674 seconds back in third, with 16 on a three-way battle for fourth. "I'm not really satisfied with this third position," the Fortuna Honda rider said. Teammate Hector Barbera took fourth from Hiroshi Aoyama on the final lap, with Andrea Dovizioso also slipping past, dropping Aoyama to sixth. With two rounds to go, Pedrosa holds an insurmountable 5 I-point '!"ad, 2642 I3, over Stoner. ')\fter the last couple of rounds, I knew that second place in the championship was secure," Stoner said. An inexplicable crash in the first race put Stoner behind from the start. "Pedrosa pulled a break straight away in that opening round, and I've been trying to catch up since then," Stoner said. "The championship was never really ours." Swiss Thomas Luthi took over the World Championship lead with a comfortable win in the 125cc Gp. The Elit Grand Prix Honda rider made short work of the field in the early going, and then cruised to a 2.663-second victory. The best that title rival Mika Kallio could muster was fifth, dropping him 12 points behind, 224-212, with two races to go. Red Bull KTM's Kallio was in the middle of a group of six riders fighting for second. At the flag, they were covered by three-tenths of a second. Tomoyoshi Koyama moved up from sixth on the penultimate lap to take the runner-up position, his first podium, with Briefly... Continued from poge 17 with a horrendous crash in tum one, not long after a similar crash by Suzuki's Kenny Roberts Jr. The Italian was taken away in an ambulance after sliding and tumbling into the controversial first-turn gravel trap. Capirossi been reluctant to return to the track had he not been injured. "They'd have went, 'Well, go back out.' No way! I shouldn't have crashed there. I'm not going to go back out. Find out what went wrong." Team manager had clocked a top speed of 324.1 kPh that lap, just down on his best of 326.3 earlier in the session. At the time of his spill, with five Paul Denning said that Roberts' "initial thought was that something had broken on the bike or the tire failed, or something drastic, but there's nothing wrong with the minutes and 49 seconds remaining, he was motorcycle or the tire." Speculation went to seventh fastest. Capirossi was diagnosed with internal bleeding at the trackside Clinica Mobile after landing hard on the left part of his chest. He was taken to a private hospital about 25 miles away, and later moved to Melbourne's Cabrini Hospital. A tube was inserted between his ribs to drain blood from his lungs, and he was put on morphine. "Now there are two problems," said Carlo Pernat, Capirossi's manager. "[Friday] they told us that it was not possible to fly. We need a minimum two weeks to stay here now. In the hotel, after every day you make a check in the hospital. Now, it seems that it's possible Tuesday come back with a doctor and the drain inside on the flight. But myself, I don't think so. Make the flight in first class, the rear Bridgestones, with a new spec dual compound that wasn't as effective on the less-used right side. "Interesting enough, [Loris] Capirossi had exactly the same offthrottle highside," Denning said. "John [Hopkins] said he had a couple of feelings a couple oftimes. Olivier Jacque said he nearly crashed a couple of times. And I just think early yesterday morning was just the wrong time to be getting the right side of the tire working. Kenny had just been in for the pits. The wheels had come out of bike one into bike two, so they're bound to lose a bit of temperature on the start. He'd done an out lap, and it was his first hard lap, he was full of confidence and he was going for it." with the drain inside, with some other instru- Suzuki team trainer Dean Miller said an ments if something happens. For me, it's a injury of this kind usually takes four to six weeks to heal, though he said further examination was needed. "I'm dealing with an xray unit here at the track, which is good big, big dream." Capirossi's condition improved to the point that he was able to fly home on Sunday night. Pernat said Capirossi was out of Turkey, for certain, and unlikely to be fit for Valencia: "For me, the season is finished." Before the extent of his injuries was known, MotoGP project manager Livia Suppo said, "It's a real shame for him, because we know he was so keen to secure second place in the World Championship." Kenny Roberts Jr. may have ridden his last MotoGP race for Suzuki. The possibility arose after the former World Champion fractured his left wrist in a mysterious prac- tice crash at Phillip Island on Friday morning. Roberts highsided in the first-tum right-hander, heavily damaging his GSV-R990. He walked away under his own power but was later diagnosed with a fractured left wrist. He flew back to California on Saturday to consult with Dr. Arthur Ting about further treatment. "I was straight up and down," Roberts said of the crash. "It was just one of them things where you highside and go, 'What the hell?' No idea I've had a lot of crashes, and if it's my fault, it's my fault. This is probably one of the maybe three or four that's unexplainable. The other ones I was knocked out, so I didn't know. [Like the one he suffered as a young AMA 250cc rider at Texas World Speedway.] And when I broke my ankle. Basically, yeah - it was the first lap on old tires, just peeled it off in there because I was just getting up to speed." Roberts said he'd downshifted from sixth to fifth to fourth when he was flicked off. The telemetry said he was going 204 kph (127 mph), and it "highsided the f--k out of me. Similar to Assen, but a little bit quicker. It hurt a lot, but I was more pissed off because I thought something catastrophic failed on the bike." What hurt more was that he thought "the bike would've went relatively good around here." Roberts said he'd have enough to illustrate what's there, but it's not an MRI and a full-blown scan," he said. "When you get that many wrist bones and things involved, I would anticipate they're going to do a much further extensive exami· nation when he gets home, because you've got to be sure." Miller said that the break was in area "that's critical, because in the braking,-it could break loose a little bit. So he's probably going to be on his way home, and just the overall bumps and bruises were pretty heavy." Miller added: "You never know what else can surface. You hit the ground that hard, he's a little bit dazed. So from a precautionary standpoint, you're still early to say what ~e'li do. But certainly Kenny won't be available to ride." Denning said Roberts flew home on Saturday morning. "He was pretty compos mentis last night and well up together. I was disappointed for him, as I said yesterday, really disappointed for him. He's really been working at it. I think he would have had a good weekend this weekend." Hopkins will be the lone Suzuki rider in Istanbul next week, but for Valencia, two weeks later, the plan is for three riders. "For Turkey, we'll run just John; for Valencia, we have to run Kenny. If not, we'll definitely run another rider, in addition to [test rider] Nobu [Aoki], so we'll have three bikes." Even if Roberts does come, Denning said there would be a reserve rider, just in case. The Suzuki team should be set by the Turkish Gp, but it may not be announced, Denning said. Roberts is still part of the team, Denning said, but he admitted having discussions with Alex Barros and Carlos Checa. With Checa expected to go to Camel Honda, Roberts and Barros might be the final two, though Denning added, "Potentially, there might be other riders we're interested in." Ironically, Capirossi and Roberts are both members of the riders' safety commission that recommended the controversial tum- one gravel trap that was installed before the 2004 race. (At the time, Capirossi wasn't on the commission.) The trap slows riders and machines down, but at a cost: Injuries and bike damage are substantially more severe. Still, Rossi and Roberts both believe it should remain. "It's downhill, and it just knocks the crap out of you," Roberts said. "It needs to be there. You just need to not fall down there." Rossi said he thought the damage to Capirossi and Roberts would have been worse without the trap: "Because have a lot worried about internal injuries and the of change... is not flat. And haven't the gravel bed. Only have the grass. And the first cor- spleen and everything else." ner is very dangerous, because the track turn Speculation about Roberts' future with the team has been rampant for much of the second half of the season. Roberts has repeatedly said he hasn't given it much thought,_and team manager Paul Denning recently said no decision had been made on Roberts' future or the choice of a second rider. A number of riders have been linked to the team. Loris Capirossi had extensive talks before agreeing to stay with the Marlboro Ducati team. Shinya Nakano's name had been mentioned before he decided to stay with Kawasaki. Most recently, Max Biaggi was pegged to possibly join the team, but that seemed contingent on Suzuki's taking the Camel sponsorship away from Sito Pons' Honda team; that now seems less certain. Denning said it was too early to discuss a replacement rider for the final two races, in Turkey next weekend, and in Valencia, Spain, in three weeks. "I haven't even thought about it," he said. "I think Suzuki would rather have two bikes out there, just for the right reasons. It's too all on the left, and when come from the last two corners to the left, have a long straight, and when you arrive on the right, the first corner is very fast, it is impressive and go on the right. Sometimes the tire is cold and is very dangerous. In fact, I think Loris slowed down during the lap, and after I pass, he start to push another time and he lost the rear." Rossi said the number-one issue with the commission is run-off, flat with sufficient gravel, then the track surface and the curbing. "I don't speak with Kenny and Loris," Rossi said. "I know Loris have pain, but you know Is more than 200 kilometer per hour and was a highside. Is difficult. I think maybe is better to come here during the summer, is a good idea maybe. With more temperature, for sure have less problem. When we come for the test here in March, the situation was also for the safety much better." The vow wasn't true. Valentino Rossi deflated the long-held belief that he'd vowed Sete Gibernau would never win Continued on page 21 CYCLE NEWS • OaOBER 26, 2005 19

• Cover