Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Jer.z CirGuir Jerez.gpoin to get past the Australian and to close rap- idty on Hayden. He was second by lap seven, with C+irossi still wvo seconds clear. Now the tension mounted and the crowd started a rolling bellow that made the hillsides rumble, because the kid was pulling him in. And he was doing so quick- ly, halving the gap well before half dis- tance. Then he was right on him by lap 17, For the next five laps, it really looked as though he might win his first lvlotoGP - it was a typical stalk-and-pounce Pedrosa game. But it was Capirossi who was bid- in8 his time, and he turned the heat up on the 23rd lap, taking back three tenths that lap, two more the next, and then sudden- temporarily ahead on the final hairpin. Melandri was another nine seconds away at the finish, taking valuable points that prove he will be a srronS challenger when he ges comfortable with bike. The battling Stoner and Nakano were within two seconds by the end, and the Ausrralian did well to hold rhe experi- enced Japanese veteran at bay. Roberts was nine seconds away, and inches ahead of Hopkins; Tamada well within sight, and Edwards a frustrated tlvo seconds down. Then Vermeulen and Checa, still all near to one another: then a big gap of more than 20 seconds to Rossi. Hofmann's Pramac Ducati took the final point; Ellison and his Yamaha the final place - the Yamaha new boy faded fast at the end of the race. He'd been chasing Hofmann and his privateer-Ducati team- mate Jose Luis Cardoso until mid-distance, when the Spanish rider pimed to retire. Luckless Randy de Puniet also retired, after iniuring his hand at the end of morn- ing warmup - unable to control the Kawasakias a result. GN sPANrsH GPAXD PRx .rErEz Cncull JEREZ, SPA|N REsu[li MaEcH 26, 200.6 l2!.( QUAUFYING: l. frania Pbini (l:46.910; 1. AlErc BautEta (r 47.043). l. Lrka P6eL \l:4,1069): 4 ldM:iircn (1.47.365):5. He&r Faui€i (l:47.474):6. ra'k: t E E T E I TI I ! .l utrati, B stonE ossi! It all staned with a great mess. with five bikes down on spilled oil at turn eight in the opening minutes of prac- tice, and a red flag out. By the end of the resBfted hour, the red flags were out again - but these ones had the word "Ducati" written all over them. The man setting the pace was Loris Capirossi, domi- nating most ofthe session, and then mqving a full second faster than the rest after the halfway point. The others started to edSe closer toward the end, but then Capirossi went faster again, to underscore the point, The closest ro him was his new teammate Sete Gibernau, within two-tenths, with Shinya Nakano's Kawasaki completing the front row a similar distance adrift. All use Bridgestone tires, its first clean sweep of the front row and the lirst time for decades there has not been one Michelin user up frant. ln fact, it was the first tame since 2002 in Australia that there has not been a single lYichelin user on the front row of the grid. At that race, Bridgestone-shod leremy Mcwilliams and Nobu Aoki (Proton), Jurgen van den Goorbergh (Honda) and Dunlop-shod Garry McCoy headed the grid. And Valentino Rossi? The first of the five to fall, he was down in ninth, on the far end of row three- He was still the fastest Yamaha, after a maior rurnaround in their fonunes since they dominated the Catalunya testg. Capirossi was beaming. "What a fun day. I could ride the way I like to ride - sideways as usual, but with everything under control,'' he said, ''We've worked hard in the tests and made a great job here two weeks ago. Ducati worked hard, and Bridgestone also. l'm happy. The qualifying tires were very good, but I also did a lot of laps on race tires, and they are also good for consistent fast times. We had a chance to test in the rain on Friday morning, and we are comfortable in that condition also." Gibernau, still getting usd to the Ducati after three years on a Honda, was more cautious, in spite of his reli- ably fast lap tirnes. "l'm still in a learning process - the team, the tires, the bike," he said. "l'm still learning a completely different way of riding from what I am used to. Right now I am not so comfortable with the bike. I am fighting with myself on the bike. I need all the track, and in a race, unless the other guys will give it to me, it will not be so easy." Nakano's third replicated the positions at Jerez tests Nvo weeks before. and proved the growing strength of Kawasaki's renewed challenge. "The front row was one of our targets, but to do it at the first race is fantastic." he said. "We knew from test- ing that Kawasaki and Bridgestone had taken a step for- ward, but you're never sure how competitive you will be until the flrst race." Nakano was another to cl-ash at the start ofthe session. Nicky Hayden moved up to head the second row late in the session, qualifying tires helping to solve (it only temporarily) his continuing problems with kaction. "l'm not thrilled with foufth, but it's respectable, and it Sives us a chance," he said. "Tomorrow's race day, and we've got our horse, and we're going to show up and ride it as hard as we can.'' There were more things to try in the warmup to improve turning, he added hopefully. At least he managed to consign his iunior teammate Dani Pedrosa to flfth, by less than a tenth. Pedrosa had been fast in tests, and remained fast at Jerez, even chal- lenging for the lead at seveial points during the free qual- ifyinS. He remained cautious. "l'm still very inexperienced," he insisted, Fellow ex- l25cc star Toni Elias was alongside, anoth- er rider iumping up the order on qualifying tires at the end, after also falling on the oil at the beginning. But he ended up ahead of troubled teammate l'4arco l',lelandri, by one position and almost a tenth of a second. "lt was an intense day," said l'4elandri- "My priority was the setup of the bike, and we tried diflerent settings and tires. I think we are getting closer tg a solution." I''lelandri led row three from Randy de Puniet and Rossi, who was facing his most difficult race for years - not helped when he was the first to fall on the oil, leav- ing him with iust one bike. "We had two ideas, but nor big differences, and we put the second bike like the first," Rossi explained. "l don't think that having two bikes would haye changed my result." The problem was chatter, and it was magnified with qualifying tires, further damaging his qualifying position. But the real problem was on race tires. "We thought we had solved a lot ofthe problems yes- terday, but they came back," he said. "Basically we are losing time on every part of the cornen We have tried eveo,thing, but it makes no difference." Rossi had qualified even lower at Valencia, where he was l5th after crashing in rhe qualirying session. "l was able to come back to the rostrum, but at that time the bike was all right, Now my best time on race tires is more than half a second slower than the leadeG - so I don't think it will be possible." His teammate Colin Edwards had exactly the same trouble, and qualified two-hundredths slower to lead "We are in the shit - both feet," he said, "The vibra- tion comes in at a certain speed, so the effect is like hav- in8 a speed-limiter an rhe bike. Chatter is the problem, and it creates other problems. too." Alongside him. Chris Vermeulen finally slotted in ahead of Suzuki teammateJohn Hopkins, showing a very different approach. The Australian GP rookie is taking it steady, moving up in the closing stages; Hopper is on the charSe all the time. and in qualifying as well as free train- ing figured well earlier on, only to drop down the order as others speeded up. Kenny RobensJr, led the next row on the new hybrid Robens Honda. lt was early days, he said: "We ried some new things this weekend, but they're only slightly better than before." The next step would come at round five at Le Mans, with a new chassis. Checa was alongside him, times now almost two sec- onds down on pole. The Dunlop-shod Yamaha was clearly no better than those on lYichelins. Rookie Casey Stoner completed row five, after {lying to fifth-fastest time in the morning session, blaming unfamiliarity with qualifyinS tires as one factor. Makota Tamada led row six, still battling to flnd form, and only narrowly ahead of .lose Luis Cardoso, James Ellison and Alex Hofmann- 20 APR|L 5, 2006 CYCLE NEws M0T06P Round I 26, 2006 Wolld Championship Road Racing S€ni€s ly comfonably clear again as Pedrosa set- tled for a still magnificent second. The next significant mover w;!s Rossi- bumper Elias, who had scrambled back to I 3th at the end of the first lap. He gained places rapidly, spent a few laps tied up with Checa and then Hopkins, but was up to seventh by lap nine. He closed down (wo seconds on Nakano, shadowing Stoner, then leap-frogged the parr in a sin- gle lap at the midpoint. He wasn't finished yet. The cautious Melandri presented little problem, and he was ahead on lap 16. Hayden was five seconds clear. By the linish, the Spaniard had closed it right down, and even nosed ri i', ) 1 tr I :{ l

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