Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 39 OCTOBER 1, 2013 P73 Briefly... crew chief. "I am the kind of rider who likes to have a family feeling. The guys I have now are so professional, but I've been with the others for three years now, and some of them five years… so I asked HRC again and they said yes." The crew was currently working with his brother Alex in Moto3, he said; but were ready to rejoin him. "I am very young, and I want to have my own dream team, working with me for many years." The Aragon track was modified at the end of the back straight, with more run-off at the point where last year Nicky Hayden ran on straight and hit the barrier so hard he flew right over it. He approved. As well as more run-off, "there's less gravel and more paving. We had a meeting about it after last year… I think the Riders' Safety Commission does a really good job. If it happened to me again this year, I'd probably be able to stop the bike. That's good." Espargaro on the same lap as Hayden, with three left, and was two seconds clear over the line for tenth. Yonny Hernandez on the second "B-team" Ducati spent the race fending off Randy de Puniet's Power Electronics ART, and was two seconds ahead at the end. A similar distance behind Hiro Aoyama passed the similar NGM Forward bike on Claudio Corti on the last lap. Andrea Dovizioso's patience with the slow progress at Ducati is wearing thin, and he used his prerace briefing to suggest urgent changes to the project management structure. This was the most important change, he said, "the key point, not the bike. If until now we did not fix the bike, then that is the consequence of the problem. The people who work on the bike didn't fix the problem," he said. "They have many ideas, but still they didn't fix the problem." His departing teammate Hayden believed that getting rid of former Ducati Corse chief Filippo Preziosi, designer of the Desmosedici, had "left a big opening. In my opinion, sure, I miss Filippo. He was a good, clear leader. He would listen, and you would get a straight answer. I don't want to trash Ducati when I'm about to leave. There are some really good people and good engineers working there. But they do need to look at all areas. Especially this year – we're getting further away. When the lab bike came for testing after Jerez it was no better. They worked a lot, tested a lot, but never made a step. I never got the chance to test it, which they said I would, and I'm pretty disappointed about that," he said. Uncomfortable hearing for current team chief Bernhard Gobmeier, installed by new owners Audi after having brought the BMW World Superbike team from the doldrums to the winner's circle. New rules about practice starts were introduced with immediate effect at Aragon, in the wake of the potentially horrendous crash at Silverstone where rider Dani Rivas was looking the other way when he arrived at a stationery group waiting to practice starts at the designated place, and plowed into them. It earned the injured Rivas a two-race suspension, and triggered a set of new rules to tighten up the procedure. As before, each track would have a designated place for practice starts, but now marshals will be posted at the zones to control the procedure, while yellow flags will warn oncoming riders that they are approaching the zone. Riders will be allowed to stop only off the racing line. Each rider will be allowed only one start from the zone, meaning they cannot start then stop and continued on next page

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