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/1545838
C Y C L E N E W S • JULY 26, 2006 17 German Alex Hofmann disappointed the home crowd by retiring with an elec- trical problem on the third lap. Kenny Roberts Jr. took out Konica Minolta Honda's Makoto Tamada on the 11th lap while trying to make a pass for fifth. Roberts Jr. was moving up the inside of turn 13 when he braked too hard and went down, taking Tamada with him. "Today I was a good chance to be in the top five. It was a ridiculous decision," Roberts Jr. said, adding that the top four were bunched up right in front of him. "I think the pass would have been okay if I wouldn't have had to hold the brake on because of the group that was in front - so just a poor decision really." Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet had a mechanical failure on the 13th lap. Humangest Racing Team's Yukio Takahashi and his Honda stole a victory with a daring last-corner move on Master-MVA Aspar Aprilia's Alex de Angelis in the 250cc GP. Fortuna Aprilia's Jorge Lorenzo was third. The win was Honda's 200th in the 250cc class. Interestingly, the first Honda 250cc GP winner was also named Takahashi and the win was also in Germany. Kunimitsu Takahashi won the 1961 West German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. "It's incredible!" the more recent Takahashi said. "Another Takahashi rider won the first GP in 1961 on a 250cc Honda and I clinched the 200th success for the Japanese manufacturer. This was a great satisfaction for me. It has been a very tough race." De Angelis had taken the lead from Jorge Lorenzo on the 10th of 29 laps. He was able to briefly stretch his advantage to over a second, but not for long. And once Takahashi moved past Lorenzo, on the 22nd of 29 laps, his intentions were clear. The setup for the pass came between the final two, nearly 90-degree left-han- ders at the end of the lap. Takahashi moved inside de Angelis and won the very short drag race to the line. It was the Japanese rider's second win this year; the first came in the French GP. Lorenzo's third put him atop the cham- pionship points standings by two points over Humangest Racing Team's Andrea Dovizioso, a distant fourth today. After 10 of 16 rounds, Lorenzo has 174 to 172 for Dovizioso. Takahashi moved into third with 133, two better than de Angelis. Master-MVA Aspar Aprilia's Mattia Pasini used everything he had, including his knees and elbows, to fend off team- mate Alvaro Bautista in the 125cc Grand Prix. The pair leaned on each other start- ing the final lap and again on the run to the stripe. Pasini got the win, by a scant .010 of a second, with polesitter Lukas Pesek one-tenth back in third on his Derbi. Bautista continues to lead the champi- onship, with 205 points to 141 for Red Bull KTM GP 125's Mika Kallio, who was eighth today. MotoGP Pedrosa sped away from his fourth pole of the season and led through turn one and for most of the lap, but not the end. Hayden took control in turn 13, the first of two left-handers that double back toward the start/finish line, and the most common passing area. Hondas led the way ending lap one, Hayden in front of Pedrosa, Roberts Jr., the surprising Tamada, and Melandri, with Rossi already through the midpackers to take sixth. Roberts Jr. dropped to fifth from third on lap two, with Rossi past and into fifth on lap four, before taking Tamada on the ninth lap. It was the 11th lap that marked the end of the day for Roberts Jr. and Tamada. Roberts Jr. said he wasn't pushing during the first half, patiently waiting to make a second-half charge. "When I went to pass him - everybody was bunched up on the last turn - and it The 2.28-mile, 14-turn Sachsenring isn't the favorite of many riders, though having 10 left-hand corners didn't bother last year's polesitter Nicky Hayden. "For sure, it's defi- nitely two quite different ends," he said of the only track where he finished on the podium in 2005 and 2005. "I like it. I mean, the first bit's really tight - kind of just the fol- low the leader. But after that it's quite good. It can be quite bumpy. But the fifth-gear dropaway corner is really fun - when it's right and the bike's working. Hopefully, the results are a lot better than Donington. But yeah, I like this track and I've had some good results here in the past." Hayden was leading the first part of last year's race before the race was stopped, "then when the red flag I ended up - I didn't get it done. I got third. My rookie year here, I ran fourth until [Loris] Capirossi passed me - we went back and forth the last couple of laps. It's been pretty good to me." Last year's winner Valentino Rossi said: "Is a strange track, because is very slow compared to a normal track. Also have a lot of left-hand corners - also three or four or five in a row. And this is very difficult for the tires. Need to make a good choice - good rubber for the left, for all the race distance." Rossi also won on a 250 in 1999 and in 2002 on a Honda RC211V. Hayden had a miserable British GP, qualifying 11th and finishing seventh on a new chassis/swingarm combination. He said the team wouldn't again make the mistake of introducing a new motorcycle on a GP week- end. "I mean it went against us," he said. "Yeah, it's risky, but I mean you know these guys aren't going any slower as the season goes on, so I know I'm going to have to get faster and improve myself and the bike. We needed a few bits and pieces, but it's too big a change - trying a completely different swingarm, chassis setup - was a lot on a race weekend. It would have been nice to have a few days testing, but that was not the case. On the one hand I was glad to get something that we thought might help. But the stuff was- n't tested enough. It's good to see HRC working, but it turned out it went against us that weekend." As to the seemingly never- ending controversy on why he remains the only one riding the smaller RC211V, he said, "Everybody says 'the old bike.' If the bike was so good, I'd try to get them to bring out one Mick's [Doohan] old 500s or something. But I mean, I don't know. I mean, at the beginning of the year this is the road we chose. This is what we've got, so we're just going to do the best we can with what we've got. At the beginning of the year I was faster on the old bike and I wanted to ride it and we under- stood there would be a lot of improvements and new stuff. So it was a risky move." Hayden said that the new chassis offered bet- ter corner entry, but little else. "And you know it was quite a lot different, so it was hard to get a feel for it. The pipes came out a differ- ent side. Actually, because the link was differ- ent, the pipe couldn't come out on the right, so it came out on the left - actually changed the power character and also the sound. I know it sounds silly what it sounds like, but as a rider, you know, to really feel the bike [you need to] also hear the sound. But it felt like definitely some potential there." The bike would likely be parked until a test after the Czech GP in Brno following the summer break. "Brno will be the first time we can really test, but if it is better and we can find some things, still three races between now and then." Valentino Rossi was grateful for a week off after two very difficult weekends. Rossi broke a bone in his right wrist and another in his left ankle during practice for the Dutch TT, but somehow managed to ride. And he was a valiant second in the British GP a week later. "Yes, Donington was a strong race because it was hot and 30 laps, always Donington is a strong race," he said. "The week before Don- ington, between Assen and Donington, I was not able to make my normal training. So I need just to spend a lot of time on therapy for have the perfect condition for the wrist. At the end of the race I was very tired. Now I start in these two weeks, I'm able to make my normal training. Some movement, some exercise, I need to don't put the normal weight." The hand was painful in certain situa- tions, which inhibited training. As did pain in his left ankle. "I'm in a good shape I think. I have pain here where the hand is big, so maybe now we control another time, so maybe have something else inside, some small problem. Because now the bone is okay. So I think for ride the bike is okay. I have some pain in the hand here. So I think I use the nor- mal protection that I use in Donington. And we continue with the therapy also with Doc- tor [Claudio] Costa here in this day." Fortuna Honda's Marco Melandri, another of the podium finishers in Donington, was also happy for the week off. Melandri contin- ues to recover from injuries suffered in the first turn of the Catalunya GP and found that one of his injuries had been misdiagnosed. Melandri said the pain in his right collarbone gradually got worse and worse following his third in the British GP, "But I don't know hon- estly why. They check only my left shoulder in the hospital in Barcelona [following the crash]. Everything looks okay in my right shoulder in Donington. I had so many injections, because I had so much pain and I got back to see the doctor in Italy the week after and they find out this small break in my collarbone. Nothing changed, honestly, for myself, but now I understand why I have so much pain. If noth- ing is broken after two weeks the pain must go away, but for myself was not so good." The Sachsenring layout, with its 10 lefts and four rights, favored Melandri's physical condi- tion. "Here you turn on the left, so for me it was a little bit better, especially for me I had one week off, so it's 23-24 days, so it's okay, it's coming better every day." Melandri is a three-time Sachsenring winner, twice in the 250cc class and once on a 125. Melandri changed crew chiefs in Germany after an extended period of unhappiness on both sides. Team technical director Fabrizio Cecchini, who's been with Melandri since he joined Fausto Gresini's squad, and previously worked with Colin Edwards, swapped places with Toni Elias's crew chief, Antonio Jimenez. "For sure this idea is coming from a long time ago," Melandri said in the Fortuna hospitality unit on Friday afternoon. "It's not possible that you go to bed and you wake up and you say, 'I want to change crew chiefs.' But it was Briefly... Continued on page 19 Hayden (69) led a lot of laps early on with the rest of the foursome - Pedrosa (26), Melandri (33) and Rossi (46) - in close pursuit.