Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128404
~----=-=----Happe------;---nlngS~in Mo-.-----torcyc~ling Schumacher to Ducaap It's no secret that Valentino Rossi has tested Michael Schumacher's Ferrari Formula One race car on several occasions, which sent the Italian press into a frenzy of rumors and speculation for over a year. Rossi's latest tests in the car only fueled the rumors further, with some even speculating that Rossi had already made a commitment to Ferrari for the 2007 Formula One season. While all of this was going on, the very man whose car Rossi tested was off testing the Ducati Desmosedici GP5 at the Mugello circuit in northern Italy. The seven-time Formula One World Champion reportedly got off to an easy start, running lap times in the 2:40 range, eventually picking up more than 30 seconds by the end of the day, but still far off of lap-record times. "It was just for fun," a Ferrari spokesman said. Ducati is based in Bologna, near Ferrari's Maranello factory, and shares the same title sponsor as the Italian Formula One team, as well as the same tire and fuel partners. "I'd been looking forward to this for a long time," commented Schumacher. "It was worth it - super fun." Schumacher, who will be 37 in January, is already the oldest active Formula One driver and has said he will see out his career at Ferrari. The German won just one race in 2005, the six-car U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, and finished a distant third in a drivers' championship. Rossi and Schumacher in 2004. 76 NOVEMBER 16, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS Red and Black Attack To commemorate its 50th anniversary and its extraordinarily successful year in racing this season, Yamaha decided to race the last round of the 2005 MotoGP World Championship at Valencia, Spain, in the company's traditional red-white-and-black racing color scheme. This follows the Yamaha Factory Team's earlier display of the traditional yellow-and-black U.S. racing colors at the US MotoGP round at Laguna Seca. As a result, the YZR-M I machines of Yamaha Factory Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards sported the red-white-and-black colors as seen on many of Yamaha's past factory racing bikes. In fact, exactly 30 years ago, in 1975, Yamaha won its first GP500 World Championship with Giacomo Agostini riding the then-revolutionary two-stoke OW23 YZRSOO, also painted in Yamaha's corporate racing colors. Yamaha has enjoyed probably the most successful year in racing ever, winning no less the seven World titles across the MotoGP, MX I and MX2 World Championships in truly dominant style. By racing in the traditional corporate racing colors, Yamaha endeavors once more to exceed expectations and touch people's hearts, making sure the 2005 racing season will be remembered for a long time to come as Yamaha enters "the next 50."