French Grand Prix, Le Mans
CAPIROSSI STARS IN EARLY STAGES OF FRENCH GP
Ducati Marlboro Team rider Loris Capirossi ran strong in the
early stages of today's French Grand Prix at Le Mans, eventually
finishing round four of the 2005 MotoGP World Championship
in seventh position. Team-mate Carlos Checa had a luckless
afternoon, he was the innocent victim of a first-lap melee,
after he had run 0.6 seconds faster than the next man in this
morning's warm-up. The race, run on a dry track after two
days of ever-changing weather conditions, was won by reigning
World Champion Valentino Rossi.
" This
was a complicated weekend because the weather changed every
session - sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes in between
- which made it difficult to work on tyre choice," said
Ducati MotoGP project manager Livio Suppo. "We are still
in the early stages of our relationship with Bridgestone,
we are on a learning curve, and we learned a lot today, our
second dry race with them. Carlos chose a tyre with a more
durable compound, so it's a shame we couldn't verify its performance
over race distance. Loris was able to run with the leaders
early on, which was good, it shows that we have a good package.
Now we just need to continue working at making the tyres even
better. We are looking forward to Mugello."
The Ducati Marlboro Team stays at Le Mans for two days of
intensive testing tomorrow and Tuesday.
STUNNING START FROM CAPIROSSI
Loris Capirossi played a starring role in the first third
of today's race, riding with early leaders Colin Edwards and
Nicky Hayden. But after one-third distance the Ducati Marlboro
Team man began to lose rear traction and had to ease off.
Even then he maintained an impressive pace to finish less
than three seconds down on sixth-finisher Nicky Hayden.
"I had a fantastic start!" said Capirossi, who
gunned his Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici into third place
from the fourth row of the grid. "After that I found
that I could easily stay with the leaders, the bike was working
really well, so it seemed like my Desmosedici could fight
for a podium finish. But from lap ten onwards I needed more
rear traction, so I had to ease my pace. It's not been easy
here because we only had one fully dry session, so I wasn't
able to try so many tyres. I chose the same tyre that worked
so well during my ten-lap endurance run yesterday afternoon.
Of course, I'm not happy with seventh, but I am happy that
we were strong for ten laps. Our relationship with Bridgestone
has only just started, we're improving step by step."
 FASTEST
IN WARM-UP, CHECA OUT OF LUCK IN RACE
Carlos Checa started today's French GP in confident mood after
setting the pace in this morning's warm-up session, when he
was 0.6 seconds faster than the next man. But the Ducati Marlboro
Team rider was out of luck in the race, crashing out after
making contact with Max Biaggi at the very first chicane.
Biaggi was forced to run wide to avoid slowing riders ahead
and Checa couldn't miss him.
"Max moved off line to avoid someone and I couldn't
brake because I was already leaned over into the corner,"
explained Checa. "Sometimes racing is like this, but
it's not easy to accept such bad luck, especially when we
had the chance of a good result here. The bike is working
so well at the moment, it's getting better all the time and
we are doing everything we can to score good results. I can't
carry this bad luck forever, so I'm looking forward to Mugello."
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