Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Briefly... Sete Gibernou leods Cosey Sloner ond Rorsi os the World Chompion closed in lrom q poor itqd from his l3th spot on the grid. Sroner ended up fifth wirh Gibernou ninth. q,@ir' t a { \ Just to get it out of the way is tremendous. I mean, it's a burden off your shoulders. lt's something, you know you can do it. You're not just waiting for something to happen. You know you can do it. I think it's time to take the next step and get into fle top three." Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen was the lone crashe( the Australian going out on the fourth lap. "l was behind Randy de Puniet - he was holding me up a bit - and I made a misake and nearly lan irto the back of him and pushed a bit too hard and lost the front, but, hey, that's racing,'' Vermeulen said. LCR HoMa's Casey Stoner recovered from an off-u-ack excursion to finish fifth. The Ausralian was sixth on the l sth lap when he made a mistake on the brakes, droppinS back to lfth- ''Withaut that I think I had the pace to challenge Edwards for the podium," Stoner said. Stoner came out the best of a four-rider battle. Sixth went to Konica Minoha Honda's Makoto TArrBda, his best finish of the sea- son. Fortuna Honda's Marco Melandri was next, the ltalian unable to lind a good setup in the limited, dry practice time. Eighth went to Mariboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi, who like Melandri, suftering from a lack of dn/ practice. 'A diftlcult weekend," Capirossi said. ''We were fast in the wet, but we didnt have enough dry-track time to make the right choice from all the new tires that Bridgestone brought here." Sete Gibemau had a similar complaint abo{-rt the ninth-placed Marlboro Ducati. "\Mth the wEather we've had here and a few problems, we made a bad tire choice, it was our mistake," he said. Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano ran into rear-wheelspin problems early in the Connnued lrom poige 19 type of rilJing. lt's got a lot more electrooics on it. lt's a diflerert judgment, When I tried to ride it like I did with the Honda, I cant. I'm slq.v. So I iust have to run it pretty different. Rdease the front brake sooner and llse it rigre as a 250 through the come6, with anore speed, which is somethinS I don't love, bot I've got to adapt to that." Glb€rnau said you can't create as much weight transf€r widr the Ducati, "so l'm just trying to b€ smoodr with this one, iust not create that much trans- fer front to reai dl6n $e bike actually reacts pretty good." A day after being called in for a chat with race officials, Fortuna ApriliJs Hector Barbera took hii lirst 25(kc pole position. Barb€ra col- lided wth Aex de Angelis on rhe linal lap of the Turkish GB just after both had passed eventual race winner Hiroshi Aofama. De Angelis made a spectacular save, bLrt ran off the track. Barbera tot $e better of it, finish- ing second, with Andrea Dovizioso finishing third. "l think we aan leave the controversy to one side," Barbera said in China. Barbera, de Angelis, and Aorama were summoned to meet wi$ race ofticials, alonS whh Jorge Lor€fizo. who was knoaked ofr in a first-tum crash. The message was, "Usten, we iust don't want to see anybody get hun, so cool it," race dircctor fuul Butlersaid, addint "it wasn't a tireal." Butler said that as far as they were concemed it was "ed8y, but not over the edge." And he was aware of animosity among de Angelis and Barbera. "The message was not ro carry the animosity into the race. That's when accidents happen," Bstler said. CamdYamahts Colin E6ryards will spend the interval between the Chinese and French GPs playing golf on the lsle of Han. Edwards flies to the UK on Sunday night, then on to the lsle of l.1an on lv'londa),. He's taking pan in the Sir Norman wisdom Golf Classic, a chari- ty event to aid the wooden Spoon Charity, at Casdetown, a famed links course on the lsle of l'4an. "l'm not going to turn down C:stle- town," said Edwards, whose currcnt passion is redio-controlled cars. ''lt's an unbelievable course, with leven holes on the sea." Fellow American Nicky Hayden was headed in dre opposhe direclion, to lapan, for tlvo days, but why? Hayden is contracted to do the Suzuka 8-Hours this year, but it's doubtful that he'd be asked to take part, especiaily if he's still in the World Championship hunt The race, conridercd the most important in Japan, .omes the week after dle Red Bull U.S,GP at Mazda Raceway l-aguna Seca. The 8-Hours iE typically run in stifling heat and humidi+ but the race isn't as buadensome as the testingl wvo or three trip6 tolapan in the middle of the MotoGP world Championship season. The HRC team manqger said he couldn't comment on whether Hayden would race the 8-Hours. Would the results thb year be different if everyone was on 500s, especially for Casey Stoner and Darii Pedrosa? "For sure, yes, for sure, for sure." Valentino Rossi said wift a smile. Melandri has already experience, but the 500 was a different story And never hap- pen in the past that one rider arrive like Pedrosa or Soner; fast like this, very easy. Come to a stop and say the bike is okay. Widl the 50o it was a fitht, a hard f8ht always." Fellow veteran Loris Capirossi agreed, 'Mini- mum a couple of yearc - twq, three years, two years minimum. The first Far you make a lot of mistakes, the second yoar comint bet- ter." The chattering problems that have bedev- iled the Yamahas are partly the result of l*4ichelin s new faner front tire. "l think the problern is the marriage betlveen the bike and the new tires," Rossi said. "The new tires work very well for Honda but veq/ bad for us." The situatiofl is a tumaround from th€ 2OO4 season wh€fi a differert-profile front worked well{or the Yamaha but stumped Honda for much of the season. Is Rossi being haunted by the ghost of Max Biaggi. R€plol HondJs lead developmert rider in 2005 who mede constandy chattered about chafiering, "l hop€ not, but, yes, this bike ha/e this prob. lem for surc everywhere." He continuedr "ln Turkey I was in a bad condition but at the end if I dont rnake the mistake, I could have arrived on the podium. Nothing is impossible, but it will be very dimcuk. lwill try to arrive in the first fwe to take some important points-" Rossi said it was a "difllcuh, difficult situation now for us, very much. We wait for the new parts for the next race, I hope- And we hope *lat the new parts work." As for worrying that he mitlt tet cauSht up in a first-tum scrum from his l3th place starting position, ar he did in Jerez with Fortuna Honda's Toni Elias, "l'm too far from the front to be involved. Elias is behind me." The rdn on Friday and brielly on Saturday was nothing like the deluge of last year's inau- Sural Chinese GP "l remember last year in this place. lt was obviously raininS a lot worse last year, but you corne dom the back straight and it would actually - the bike would lift about an inch," Colin Edwards said. "You know ooce you got up to 185-190 mph, and you knew you were ridinS on top of the water, and dlat wasn't a good feeling, so you couldn't just grab a whole bunch of brake. And y€sterday, it wasn t that bad. I saw I thlnk it was [Jose L!is] Cardoso went dotyn in frcnt of me, just as he grabb€d the bmkes, went down. And that kind of made me pucker a lit- tle bit. I thoutht, 'Okay, I was brakinS a little bit like an old lady there - no offense to any Iadies."' The Friday words of Rizla Suzuki's John Hop kins proved prophetic in Saturday's short- ened qualiting session- Friday's two wet ses- sions prompted Hopkins to say it mitht woak to hir ad\rantage because of how quickly the team starts. "Basically, ju$ we always come out of the box stront at the beginning of the weekend with $e dry setting," he said a day before qualifyin8 second. "Basicalt, that cal. be an ad\,antage for us becuse not everyone has a lor of time to refine their setup. I rnean my crew chiet's really good at knowing what I want, where I want. We have a realb/ good communication level there- lf it's a dry settinS we can come stGiSht out and be quite stront. It's just tires- What tires are goinS to do, that's our biggest concern." Con,inued oa page 25 CYCLE NEWS . MAY 24,2006 2l clutch problems- Hayden said he needed ajl the dry time he could get, and he didnt get enough. "We're havin8 a lotofclutch problems, and it's all we reallyworked on this morninS," he said. Hayden sad on the critical co.ner entry rt locks the rear wheel, refusing to disengage smoothv. ln Turkey, it would some times bend the outer plares on the start making it dimcuh to shift. The problem was especially acute in China because of the heavy dowmhifting after the lons strarghlaways. "WeVe been havin8some problems since Qacar. really. and we rr'ed rhis stuff to fix it. dif- lerenr order. baskeEs, plates. this and that. We re actualt - we're not making any progress." Marlboro Dueti's Sete Gibemau was sixth on. machrne that didnt suit the qualifiers over the fulll+. "lt's up to us and BridSestone to Ilnd the riaht solution lor the race. becaus€ when the tires are okay we know we can 80 well, but we dont what to end up in the same situation we were in a. lstanbul lwhere he finished I l!h1," he said. Honda LCRS Casey Stoner rebounded from a qualifying crash to finish seventh fattesr. The young Australian was caught out just as $e rain began to fall, slidinS his RC2l lV into the Eravel trap. But he lost little dry time to the othe6 who soon pitted. "l have a very good race setup on my race bike. but we stillhave (o checktire life {or the race dhtancei thacs a bit of a worry at the moment " Stoner said. lfl th€ middle of the thrrd row was Fotuna Hondat l4arco Melandri, the Trrrkish GP winner spendinS his dr/time working on rear-suspen- sion settinSs. Kawasaki s Pandy de Puniet was on a record run when his qualifier went off late on his fast lap. "and by rhe time I goa to the lonS riSht-hand tum before the straighr, the rear was starting to spin up as the rire went off. and I had to senle for nin$ place on Ehegrid," the young French- man said. The aftemoon rarn prevenled llarlboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi from completin8 his test proSmm and put him behind forthe race. ''We did our best today, and we will need to make $e most of warmup to test more tjres, making sure we dont take any bi8 gambles for the race." he said. Next ws Konia Minolta Honda's f1al

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