Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

it took him a while to get going. But for the whole race, he was shadowing Melandri, echoing his every move. The plan was to mount an attack in the final corner, a swooping downhill left exited in first or second gear. But on the fast left-hand run to the tighter corner, the rear of Melandri's RC21 I V stepped out, giving Hayden an opening. "That lap I went to first gear and just tried to get a good drive, tried to get it picked up, tried to steal one from him at the line," Hayden said. "It didn't happen." Instead, Melandri celebrated one of the best days of his life, securing second in the championship, behind Rossi. "Today, also in my best dream I couldn't imagine a day like that, finish second in the Championship, win the race," Melandri said after adding the Valencia triumph to his inaugural win in Turkey two weeks ago. "Because to finish the season with two victories, to me, is the best way to finish the season. And normally I finish my first two season in MotoGP so bad with the injuries. So every time I tried to recover, and I couldn't train or think about making a good season the day after. Now I'm sure I can have some rest, I can start the training again, thinking about to improve myself for the next season." Rossi handicapped himself by crashing during Saturday qualifying. When he returned to the track, he could muster only a fifth-row effort. "If you want to win a Gp. it's impossible starting from I Sth place," he said. "The bigger mistake is mine. Because yesterday for try to do a little bit better, I crashed." In the second half of the race, Rossi closed the gap on the leaders by half, but it was a case of too little, too late. "I'm happy about the second part of the race, where I was the fastest on the track, I had the best rhythm," he said. "I'm able to recover from six seconds to three." Rossi finished 2.959 seconds behind Melandri. Carlos Checa finished fourth in his last race for the Marlboro Ducati team. Late Sunday evening, the team announced that he'd been replaced by fellow Spaniard Sete Gibernau. Checa stuck with Rossi until just past midpoint, when Rossi pulled away as Checa encountered tire-chatter problems. At the end, the interval was nearly 16 seconds. "I was with Valentino for a while; I was faster in some areas, but it was too risky to overtake, and finally he was stronger," Checa said. "The chatter got worse in the final laps, and I slowed down, so we need to analyze that." The next two riders across the line were also soon to be unemployed. Camel Honda's Alex Barros got the better of Repsol Honda's Max Biaggi three laps from the end. Neither has a job for next year in MotoGP. Marlboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi, who'd run with the pair throughout, dropped back to a safe seventh at the end. "I am really happy even though this wasn't an exceptional result, because I have won two difficult battles with Loris and Max," Barros said. Biaggi's day started with a crash in the morning warmup. "The crash caused some pain in my finger and in my right leg, but the bike was badly damaged and definitely didn't feel the same this afternoon, even though the team did a great job in rebuilding it in a very short time," he said. "In the race, we are so slow into the corners. The front goes jump, jump, jump." Still smarting from the injuries he suffered in Australia, Capirossi was happy to finish eighth. "If I hadn't come here, I would've finished the year eighth overall," Capirossi said. "Instead, I'm sixth." Colin Edwards finished the day eighth and the season fourth, his best Championship result. Having tried to adapt a new riding style late in the season, not entirely successfully, Edwards was anxious for the testing season to start. "I have never been at the last race of a season counting down the days for winter testing to start," the "Texas Tornado" said. "We have a lot of work to do, and I want to get going as soon as possible. It's been an average season, but we've learned a lot for next year, and the whole team has worked very hard for me." Next was Makoto Tamada, spinning the rear tire on the Konica Minolta Honda. "Ninth position doesn't satisfy me," he said. Fortuna Yamaha's Toni Elias battled Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano to the 29th of 30 laps, when he made the pass for 10th. Nakano needed a pain-killing injection for the left hand he damaged in a Friday practice crash. "The final five laps were very difficult with my hand, and it was not easy to concentrate," he said. "I knew Toni [Elias] was behind me and that if he challenged me, it would be impossible to hold him back, so I let him go past. I knew I need- ed the points in the championship [rather than risk crashingJ." Nakano lost four places and teammate Alex Hofmann three in an opening-lap skirmish. Hofmann found the riderless Ducati of Roberto Rolfo in front of him after the Italian rider had crashed. Who caused the crash was a matter of dispute. Ryuichi Kiyonari brought the Camel Honda home 12th, riding in place of the injured Troy Bayliss. The Japanese rider just edged out Suzuki's John Hopkins, whose lap times rose as he lost grip. "It's not the position I wanted to finish the season on, that's for damn sure," he said. An injured Alex Hofmann rode the Kawasaki for the last time to 14th. "Over the final 10 laps, my leg was folding, and I knew that trying to overtake would be a big risk, plus my concentration was fading," Hofmann said of racing with a weak and injured left foot. "And in my final race for Kawasaki, I wanted to finish in the points." Behind Hofmann, Ruben Xaus rode his last race for the Fortuna Yamaha team. He finished his brief MotoGP career in 15th and now heads back to World Superbike. "It has been a difficult year in which I have been battling to adapt to the M I , but it has proved difficult," he said. The final finisher was Franco Battaini, in what may be the last race for the WCM. Financial constraints will likely prevent the team from continuing in 2006, though nothing was announced in Spain. The nonfinishing roster was five deep and led by Spaniard Sete Gibernau. In his swan song on the MoviStar Honda MotoGP team, Gibernau suffered a sixthlap engine failure in front of his fellow countrymen. He said it was the sixth of the season, to go along with one race where he ran out of gas. "I realized on the sighting lap that the bike was vibrating, and I told the boys, but we thought that because it was a new engine, everything would be fine," he said. "In the race, the vibrations got worse with every lap until it broke." Briefly... Kenny Roberts will field a team in MotoGP next year, he confirmed on race morning in Valencia. "We'll be here next year unless something really unforeseen happens," Roberts said. "We're proceeding in that direction." Roberts said that the hunt for sponsorship money continued, with nothing new to report. But work on the motorcycle, using a Team Roberts chassis and Honda RC21lV engine, has begun. "We are building a motorcycle at the moment ~ we are designing it at the moment." he said. "The design package isn't far away from what we'll be building. In six weeks we'll have a completely new bike." Roberts said that Honda had supplied a non-running motor that Team Roberts could build around. "Everything is supplied by Honda," Roberts said. "Engine and electronics isn't a problem. The problem is having the funds to do the program properly. Already we have enough to do the program. We want to do it properly. For years we've done it improperly just trying to be here. Every year we try to step it up a bit." The number-one choice to ride it is Kenny Roberts Jr. "He has the number-one slot," Kenny Senior said. "I think junior has to decide if he wants to be the rider. He has the number-one slot. That's what we're hoping for, unless something unforeseen happens." Tires haven't been confirmed, but Michelin is the preferred choice. "We certainly don't want to be developing the tires and the vehicle," Roberts said, "and junior wants that [Michelin] to happen." The dark cloud that hung over Loris Capirossi in Australia followed him home. En route from his home in Monaco to Valencia, his motorhome engine caught fire, and the coach was qUickly consumed by flames. The motorhome, one of the older ones in the paddock, was being driven by his father, and Loris, who was following in a van, had a front-row seat. Capirossi explained that because of the lung injury he suffered in Australia, he wasn't comfortable flying. "The bad luck does not stop in Australia, because when I come here, because I don't want to take the flight because of the problem of pressure, I come by my motorhome, and during the way, near to St. Tropez, we have some problem in the engine and it start to put fire and the motorhome is completely destroyed, everything," he said. "But anyway, I am lucky." Maybe not. Capirossi said the motorhome wasn't insured. Shane Byrne was a factory rider briefly before having the rug pulled out from under him. On Monday evening, Byrne was asked if he could stand in on the Camel Honda for the still injured Troy Bayliss. Australian Chris Vermeulen, who'd ridden the bike in Australia and Turkey, had been ruled out after signing with Suzuki for 2006. Byrne agreed, then dispatched his motorhome to Spain. The next morning he got the

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