The Ducati Team today ended a
difficult weekend with a double top-ten result at searing-hot Laguna
Seca, Loris Capirossi coming home eighth, team-mate Sete Gibernau in
tenth as temperatures nudged 40 degrees.
The race was a gruelling endurance test for men, machines and tyres,
especially for Capirossi and Gibernau who never managed to get the
best out of their bike/tyre package at this unusual racetrack. More
then 3.000 ducatisti watched at the race from Ducati Island tribune.
LORIS CAPIROSSI, finished eighth,
fifth overall
"I think I rode a good race, a very good race considering what we
had at our disposal. It was impossible for me to do better than
this. I never gave up, I passed Sete and Tamada, built a gap and
then controlled that gap to the end. I used harder tyres than I had
used all weekend, the front was okay, the rear went down mid-race,
but overall they were okay. I am glad I finished and got some
points. I just hope that this is our last tough race and that the
difficult part of the season is over."
SETE GIBERNAU, finished tenth, 13th
overall
"It's been the same all weekend, we haven't been able to adjust our
bike/tyre package to this track. It was one of those races which I
just wanted to end because my shoulder (Gibernau broke his left
collarbone last month) wasn't good. It was done after eight laps and
I didn't want to ride with anyone else because I was struggling to
get the bike stopped. Anyway, we're done now and we're going home
for the summer break, when we can get our heads down and analyse
what we've done here. It's not going to be much of a holiday for me
because I've got to work very hard to get my physical condition back
to where it should be."
FEDERICO MINOLI, Ducati Motor
Holding CEO and president
"Considering our performance in practice, the race went better than
we had expected. It is never fair to be happy with other riders'
misfortune but a little of that definitely helped us today."
LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project
manager
"It's been a very difficult weekend. This is a very particular
racetrack and we weren't able to put it all together here. But both
rides gave it their best despite everything and with some other
riders having problems we got some decent points. We have to think
positive, go home and analyse the data to understand why we weren't
fast here, when we know we can be very fast at more normal
racetracks. Thanks as always to our technical partners, first of all
to Shell Advance, for their support." |
