ROUND 1 – SPANISH GP – JEREZ
YAMAHA RIDERS UNABLE TO SHAKE OFF JEREZ CURSE
An eventful weekend at Jerez ended in disappointing
fashion today as both Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards got
caught in a first corner melee that ended their hopes of glory
in the opening round of the 2006 MotoGP World Championship.
The Camel Yamaha Team pair made good starts from ninth and
tenth on the grid respectively but a collision between Rossi
and Toni Elías (Honda) on the inside of turn one saw
the Italian knocked from his YZR-M1 and sent Edwards wide
into the gravel trap. Despite some damage to his bike,
Rossi showed the character of a true World Champion as he
returned to the track, battling his way back into the field
and picking off several riders to secure two championship
points in fourteenth place. Edwards, meanwhile, fought from
second last to eleventh by the end of the 27-lap encounter.
Victory went to pole setter Loris Capirossi (Ducati) in a
race time of 45’57.733, but he was pushed hard by second-placed
Dani Pedrosa (Honda) on his debut in the MotoGP class. Nicky
Hayden (Honda) completed the podium.
COLIN EDWARDS (11th; + 37.930) "I probably
made the best race start of my whole life, Valentino got away
well too and we went together into the first bend. Elias came
up on the inside and I actually saw everything happen but
to be honest I thought Vale would be able to stay on the bike
so I kept my corner speed and tried to just run it around
the outside. Unfortunately he went down and I had nowhere
to go but the gravel. It really capped the weekend off for
us but the truth is that we weren’t fast enough to challenge
today. This track has been a real pain for us and I can’t
wait to get away. We’ve got a test tomorrow but I’ll
be happy when we get to Qatar, where the bike worked really
well in testing.”
VALENTINO ROSSI (14th; + 1’05.766)
“We knew this was going to be a difficult race but maybe
not so difficult! I saw Toni come up on the inside and he
hit me; this is racing and these things happen. I have known
Toni for many years and he is a good rider. He apologised
to me after the race so I told him not to worry – only
to remember to brake next time and if it is too late then
to hit another bike instead of me! Anyway I came back on the
track and had a nice battle with Alex Hofmann. I am disappointed
because I wanted to win the first race of the season but there
is nothing we can do now. Only work hard to make sure we don’t
have these problems again and look forward to the next race
in Qatar.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“It seems that everything that could go wrong did go
wrong for us this weekend. On Friday morning when we needed
the time to test it rained and things have gone continually
against us since then. We obviously still have a lot of work
to do and for some reason our bike clearly doesn’t work
at this circuit so we are keen to find out why, if we can,
in tomorrow’s test. The engineers have a lot of
data and everyone is working at 100% to find a solution. We
were fast at Sepang, Qatar and Catalunya so there is no need
to panic and we can look forward to the next race. On a positive
note I thought both riders showed character to fight back
after the first corner incident and hopefully they will have
better luck next time.”
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