MotoGP 2003 - Round 14 - Sepang - Preview

This weekend the Ducati Marlboro Team makes its tropical race debut at Sepang, where riders Loris Capirossi and Troy Bayliss will compete in grueling heat and humidity, wooing Malaysian fans with the awesome sound of the Desmosedici MotoGP bike.

The Desmosedici has been the star turn of the 2003 MotoGP season, scoring one victory, three pole positions and six podium finishes so far, even though this is Ducati’s first GP campaign in more than three decades. Ducati currently lies second in the 2003 manufacturers’ World Championship.

Intense development work has ensured that the Italian V4 has improved race by race, though the Ducati Marlboro Team is in a period of consolidation during this quick-fire succession of three back-to-back ‘flyaway’ events. Last weekend Capirossi and Bayliss raced in Japan and next weekend they’ll race in Australia, which means that racing, rather than development, is the priority at the moment.

After next Sunday’s Australian GP the MotoGP circus heads back to Spain for the season finale, the Marlboro Valencia Grand Prix, on November 2.

The Ducati Marlboro Team can breathe a sigh of relief as it approaches Sunday’s Marlboro Malaysian GP. This is the squad’s rookie MotoGP year, with many new circuits to learn, but last weekend the team got to know Motegi, the last venue that it went to ‘blind’, with zero track knowledge. From now on Loris Capirossi and Troy Bayliss can go into MotoGP events with a base set-up, which should allow them to compete on a more equal footing with their rivals.

The pair go into this weekend’s Marlboro Malaysian GP with three days of track knowledge behind them. Both Capirossi and Bayliss lapped inside the track record when they visited Sepang for tests last January, during the early stages of the Desmosedici’s grueling but productive development schedule. That session gives them plenty of data from which to work, though the bike has undergone numerous chassis improvements since then.

“Our preseason test at Sepang was one of our first proper tests with the Desmosedici, after some earlier shakedowns,” says Ducati Marlboro Team technical director Corrado Cecchinelli. “It was a very important test for us because we really needed to know how the bike would perform in extreme conditions.

“Most important at Sepang is overall balance; the bike needs to be comfortable and easy to handle because the riders are performing in grueling heat and humidity, so we need to make it as easy as possible for them. For example, that might mean we’d make a small compromise in stability to make the bike easier to handle.

“Reliability is a major issue in such extreme conditions but we had no problems there during preseason tests. What we really learned from that session was that we needed to improve rider comfort by reducing heat. We made improvements before the season and introduced another cooling package at Brno in August.”

If the heat and humidity of Sepang are a real issue this weekend, the logistics of these three back-to-back ‘flyaway’ races are awesome. The entire sport has to be transported from one country to the next – Japan, Malaysia and Australia on consecutive weekends – without a single hiccup. The travelling MotoGP paddock numbers around 1000 people, who make their way via commercial airlines, then there’s 280 tonnes of freight, including 140 motorcycles, which is transported from airport to track and back again by a fleet of 45 juggernauts. Two Jumbo 747 cargo planes carry the kit from country to country.

“The Ducati Marlboro Team carries around 9500 kilos of freight for the ‘flyaways’,” explains team coordinator Dario Raimondi. “We pack that freight into 35 crates immediately after each race, which takes around four hours. Those crates are then loaded onto a juggernaut that drives to the local airport. The two 747s fly as soon as they can, because the freight needs to arrive in the next country, clear customs and get to the track by Tuesday evening. It’s a huge job, and everyone needs to know exactly what they’re doing to avoid any complications.”

Ducati Marlboro Team rider Loris Capirossi comes to Sepang aiming to score his fifth podium result of the year to consolidate his fourth place in the 2003 MotoGP World Championship. Winner of the factory’s first MotoGP victory at June’s Marlboro Catalan GP, Capirossi is confident he can once again run up front at Sepang.

“When we tested at Sepang we didn’t really have enough time to work on our set-up for the track, we were doing more general testing,” says Capirossi. “But even if we had worked on settings, we’d have to do it all over again because the bike is so different now. The machine has really grown up since January, it’s a much better package now, so I think we can have a good race at Sepang. The track is fast and open, which should be great for our bike. But the heat is always the major concern, it makes life tough for everyone and everything – the rider, the bike, the tyres, also the crew in the pits! We will need all the grip we can get because our bike has so much horsepower. I like the track a lot; it’s so wide in some places that you don’t even need to use all the track, which is very unusual. But the extra width makes Sepang great for overtaking.”

Capirossi has already tasted success at Sepang – he won the 1999 Malaysian 250 GP. Last October he finished ninth and highest-placed 500 in the MotoGP class. The previous year, when everyone was riding 500s, he was a close-fought second.

Last weekend’s Pacific GP completed Troy Bayliss’ knowledge of current MotoGP tracks, so from now on the Ducati Marlboro Team rider goes into races better prepared. Currently fifth overall and highest-placed rookie, Bayliss has three days experience of Sepang from the team’s January tests, and he intends to put that to good use this weekend.

“I was pretty happy with how we were going by the time we’d done that Sepang test,” says Bayliss. “And I hope we’ll be going a fair bit quicker this time because the bike has come on quite a bit since then. Everyone at the factory and in the team has been working really hard, so the bike has been pretty much perfect at some tracks. Sepang’s layout is okay and the place is pretty wide, but as far as I’m concerned it’s really just another racetrack. Like any other place there’s a right way of getting around it quick. But it’s the weather that really gets to you – it’s always stinking hot and humid at Sepang. I know I’m Australian but I’ve not been in that kind of heat for a while! It’s a super test of strength and endurance.”

Bayliss has never raced in Malaysia before but his preseason pace at Sepang was impressive – 0.9 seconds inside the lap record.

Sepang is one of the longest tracks on the World Championship calendar – only Assen and Suzuka are longer – and boasts the longest-lasting lap in Grand Prix racing, several seconds longer than the Dutch and Japanese venues.

The Malaysian GP venue is also one of the widest racetracks in the world, putting riders and machines to the test with an excellent variety of corners and high-speed straights. Withering heat and humidity are further challenges, not only for riders and machines, but also for technicians and everyone else working in pit lane.

Sepang hosted its first Grand Prix in April 1999 and was an instant hit with riders and teams. The state-of-the-art complex, built adjacent to Kuala Lumpur’s brand-new international airport, took circuit and infrastructure design to a new level, combining a fast, safe track layout with ultra-impressive pit, media and corporate facilities.