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MotoGP 2008 - Round Four - Shanghai (China) |
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MotoGP 2008 - Round Four - Shanghai (China) |
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| MotoGP 2008 - Round Four - Shanghai (China) - MotoGP Race |
By Trevor Hedge The ability of Yamaha’s M1 was again showcased during qualifying in
China for round four of the 2008 MotoGP World Championship. Tech 3 Yamaha pilot Colin Edwards used his Michelin qualifiers to best effect to score pole position ahead of Bridgestone men Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) and Casey Stoner (Ducati). Round three winner Jorge Lorenzo headed the second row ahead of leading Honda rider Dani Pedrosa and Suzuki pilot Loris Capirossi. Fronting the third row of the grid was James Toseland, making it four Yamahas in the top seven qualifiers and continuing their perfect record of pole positions throughout the season thus far. At the previous round in Estoril four Yamahas finished in the top seven in the race with Jorge Lorenzo taking the win. An awesome result that Yamaha were eager to repeat or better at Shanghai. However practice sessions clearly showed that no matter how good the in-line four-cylinder Yamaha is there is little room for error at this level. During a practice session on Friday Jorge Lorenzo had one of the most incredible and frightening high-sides ever seen. The impact was so forceful that Lorenzo had to resort to using a wheelchair to get around before the race. The impact leaving him severely battered and bruised but a chipped bone and extensive tissue damage around his ankles the most immediate and troublesome problem. Rain had threatened right up to the beginning of the race and with conditions far from settled it made tyre and suspension set-ups somewhat of a gamble for all concerned. Colin Edwards capitalised on his pole position to get a great run off the line but Stoner nosed ahead on the entry into turn one. Edwards was not giving up without a fight and held onto his lead despite that early attack from the World Champion. Valentino Rossi started strongly ahead of Pedrosa, Lorenzo, Hayden, Capirossi and Toseland. As they commenced lap two nothing separated the top four. Stoner used the awesome horsepower of the Ducati to get past Edwards on the main straight but ran into turn one a little too hot which allowed Edwards and Pedrosa to pass. Rossi pushed Stoner back to fourth a couple of corners later. Starting to loom in the background was Nicky Hayden, the American putting in a brilliant opening lap from the fourth row of the grid. Rossi made the same mistake as Stoner on the next lap arriving at turn one with too much speed. Stoner however did exactly the same thing the second time around and thus was unable to capitalise on Rossi’s mistake. Valentino recovered brilliantly to sweep past Edwards and set about chasing down Pedrosa. Rossi was the only man able to match the pace of Pedrosa and the two started to break away from the field. Edwards continued to fend off Stoner in a battle over third position. Rossi hit the lead with 17 laps to run and from here it looked likely that the win would go down to the wire between the pair with the winner likely to be decided by tyre longevity. Bridgestone v Michelin. Yamaha v Honda. Italy v Spain. Rossi yet again ran wide at turn one but managed to miraculously gather it up in a way only Valentino can manage and retained his lead. Colin Edwards was not so fortunate, the Texan also ran wide but did not recover so gracefully and went from a strong third place back to seventh place, just ahead of the injured Lorenzo. No joy for the Suzuki camp as Capirossi looked to be struggling under brakes while Chris Vermeulen retired with gearbox problems with 15 laps to run. All that work over the weekend amounting to nothing for Vermeulen and his team of mechanics a bitter pill to swallow. A nasty taste that would linger in their mouths during the long flight back to Europe. The revelation of round four in race trim was Ducati man Marco Melandri. A brilliant talent that had yet failed to flourish onboard the powerful but notoriously hard to ride Ducati. China seemed to be something of a watershed turnaround for the Italian who had the bit between his teeth and had fought his way through the field up to fourth place ahead of Dovizioso with 13 laps to run in the 22 lap encounter. As the race reached the halfway mark the battle up front between Rossi and Pedrosa was hotter than ever, both men dipping below the two minute barrier for the first time. Pedrosa close astern of Rossi lap after lap with the gap never more than half a second separating the two fastest men on the circuit. Stoner was still in third place but a long way back and no threat to the two men a long way in front of him. The big mover in the second half of the race was the injured Lorenzo. The Chupa-Chup kid dispensing with Hayden, Edwards, Dovizioso and Melandri all in the space of two laps to move up to fourth position. And fourth was likely the best Lorenzo could hope for as with seven laps to run Stoner held a six second buffer over the Yamaha man. With six laps remaining neither Rossi nor Pedrosa looked to be suffering from a lack of grip. Both men were still running a hot pace with Pedrosa maintaining station a couple of bike lengths behind #46. A new fastest lap of the race on lap 16 to Rossi declared his intention to try and sneak away from Pedrosa in order to stave off the chance of any last lap desperado move from the Spaniard.  Rossi went quicker again when they next crossed the stripe but Pedrosa was still less than a second behind the Fiat Yamaha man and was putting in a huge effort to stick with Valentino to the bitter end. Rossi was looking ever so smooth and in control. In contrast Pedrosa looked very aggressive, hard on the gas and really picking the machine up off the side of the tyre on corner exits, a style reminiscent of the 500cc two-stroke days. Pedrosa’s efforts were not enough however and with three laps to run Rossi had a clear two seconds over Pedrosa and almost 15 seconds on Stoner. Only a disaster would change the order of that podium. As Rossi got the last lap board he had a 3.7 second buffer over Pedrosa and 16.2 seconds over Stoner. That is how the three men crossed the line for the chequered flag. Rossi clearly ecstatic with his first win in seven races. "After seven races it is a great feeling to win again; I am very happy! This is a very important result for us because above all I was able to ride exactly how I wanted from start to finish and this was great fun for me. "I had a great battle with Pedrosa and he pushed me hard and to be doing 1'59s until the end was unbelievable! All weekend we were hoping the rain wouldn't come so when we saw it this morning we were quite disappointed, then it started to dry out so we were praying that it would dry completely; we were lucky today! We worked very well with Bridgestone and together with their technicians we made a late tyre change and it was the right choice because my tyre worked very well until the end, as my times showed! "It's the first win for us with Bridgestone so this is a great moment also for this reason and I want to say thank you to them. We were fast from Friday morning here and step by step we've found the perfect set-up and today the hard work paid off for everyone. We've had four races and four different winners so this shows how close the championship is, now we need to keep going because our rivals are all very near. Lorenzo did a great race today with his injuries, so this is a good day for everyone in the team. Thank you to my team and everyone at Yamaha, it's great to be here again." Perhaps the only happier men were the injured Jorge Lorenzo who claimed a brilliant fourth place. And Marco Melandri also with good reason to be happy with fifth place a great boost to the Italian’s confidence. Lorenzo’s fourth place, despite his injuries, will certainly make his evening 21st birthday celebrations much sweeter than he dared hope for after that terrible highside on Friday. lLorenzo - "Without a doubt, this result today is like a victory for me. On Friday I couldn't imagine being able to ride, then yesterday it was a little bit better and then finally today I was not able just to ride, but to be competitive and enjoy myself as well! I've ridden with a lot of pain in both legs but the staff of the Clinica Mobile made it possible for me to keep going, so I want to thank them. I lost a lot of places early on but in the second half of the race I found my rhythm and then step by step I started to move forwards; in fact I think I made more overtakes than in any race so far in this category! "I stalled the engine on the start line for the warm-up lap, which was a scary moment, but luckily I was able to restart and it wasn't a problem. I want to say congratulations to Valentino for a great victory today as well, I think it's going to be an exciting year. I didn't have any pain in my arms today so hopefully the recent operation has been a success. Now I'm flying back to Barcelona to have treatment on my ankles and I will do everything I can to be back to my physical best in Le Mans. I want to thank Michelin, because my tyres were very good today, as well as Yamaha and all of my guys. I've had a great 21st birthday!" Dani Pedrosa leaves Shanghai with the series lead and a seven point buffer over Jorge Lorenzo thanks to his his second place in China. Pedrosa - “I’m very happy with today’s result. We had been expecting a wet race, so to get second today is fantastic and it’s 20 good points for the championship. I started a bit cautious during the early laps because I didn’t know what the track conditions were like, but then Valentino and I began to set an extremely fast pace. Lap by lap our rhythm got faster. I had the advantage through the middle section of the track, he had the advantage through the first and last sections. "My Michelin tyres were working really well and we were riding at lap record pace all through the race. The wind was very strong today, so my engine was over-revving, which is why I decided to ride a little more conservatively in the final laps to secure second place and the world championship lead.” Stoner, 3rd - "I'm disappointed to be honest because I know we could have done better today. The bike has worked really well in practice and we thought we had the ideal set-up for today but we changed a couple of things and for one reason or another the package just wasn't as good as before. I made a good start and I was happy with that but even in the first corner I couldn't get the bike turned, Colin Edwards came past me, and that was the story of the race. "As the race wore on my lap times improved but it was too little too late and in any case it wouldn't have been enough for me to stick with the lead guys. I'm disappointed this has happened today - not so really for third place which is a good result but for the big gap from the lead. I know we can do much better so we will put this behind us, wipe the slate clean and try to do better next time out." Rossi’s victory strengthened his third position with his 72 point tally only two adrift of Lorenzo. Stoner is fourth in the standings on 56 points ahead of Capirossi and Toseland who share fifth place with 33 points apiece. The MotoGP battle recommences on May 18 at Le Mans. |
| MotoGP Race Result | MotoGP Championship |
| 1 V. ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team
44'08.061 2 D. PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team + 3.890 3 C. STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team + 15.928 4 J. LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team + 22.494 5 M. MELANDRI ITA Ducati Marlboro Team + 26.957 6 N. HAYDEN USA Repsol Honda Team + 28.369 7 C. EDWARDS USA Tech 3 Yamaha + 29.780 8 T. ELIAS SPA Alice Team + 30.225 9 L. CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP + 31.440 10 S. NAKANO JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini + 35.969 11 A. DOVIZIOSO ITA JiR Team Scot MotoGP + 36.246 12 J. TOSELAND GBR Tech 3 Yamaha + 43.191 13 R. DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP + 43.442 14 J. HOPKINS USA Kawasaki Racing Team + 45.855 15 S. GUINTOLI FRA Alice Team + 46.330 16 A. DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini + 50.593 17 A. WEST AUS Kawasaki Racing Team + 1'05.593 |
1 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda
Team 81 2 Jorge LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team 74 3 Valentino ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team 72 4 Casey STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team 56 5 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 33 6 James TOSELAND GBR Tech 3 Yamaha 33 7 Colin EDWARDS USA Tech 3 Yamaha 31 8 Nicky HAYDEN USA Repsol Honda Team 29 9 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA JiR Team Scot MotoGP 26 10 John HOPKINS USA Kawasaki Racing Team 26 11 Marco MELANDRI ITA Ducati Marlboro Team 23 12 Shinya NAKANO JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini 22 13 Toni ELIAS SPA Alice Team 15 14 Chris VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 14 15 Randy DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP 11 16 Alex DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini 7 17 Sylvain GUINTOLI FRA Alice Team 4 18 Anthony WEST AUS Kawasaki Racing Team 3 |
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MotoGP 2008 - Round Four - Shanghai (China) |
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