GAULOISES YAMAHA PAIR GET TO GRIPS WITH ISTANBUL PARK
Gauloises Yamaha Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
got their first taste of the Istanbul Park circuit today as
bright sunshine and moderate temperatures welcomed the MotoGP
World Championship to Turkey for the first time. The riders
had an extra half hour of free practice this morning as they
aimed to get to grips with the new track, which proved to
be somewhat trickier than expected, with several riders running
off the circuit throughout the day. Rossi and Edwards were
amongst those to make minor miscalculations this morning,
the Italian missing his braking marker and running into the
gravel traps on two occasions and the American losing the
front end of his YZR-M1 and sliding off completely. Edwards’
eventful day continued in the afternoon when an engine problem
resulted in a small fire that warmed his ankles but brought
no serious damage to either the rider or machine. Despite
the setback Edwards set the seventh fastest lap of the day
over the two sessions, two places behind Rossi on the combined
time sheets, which were headed by Marco Melandri (Honda).
VALENTINO ROSSI (5th - 1’55.078; 57 laps)
“The track is not so bad – very similar to China
but with more up and down and our problems today are similar
to the ones we had there. There are some long, fast corners
and also some slow hairpins; it is difficult to find the right
setting. The bike is not working as well as we would like
and we couldn’t be at the top. There is quite a lot
of damage to the surface in the hard-braking areas from the
Formula 1 and there are a lot of bumps. Our problem is mainly
with the front end; we need to understand this to be able
to ride the bike at the maximum. Anyway, it is only the first
day at a new track so it is not so bad – tomorrow we
will try and understand things a lot better.”
COLIN EDWARDS (7th – 1’55.171; 48 laps)
“The crash this morning was a strange one; I felt like
I was actually going slower than I had done on the previous
lap but then the front end just went away. I guess you have
to put it down to this being a new track. The bike was still
running on its side for quite a while before I could get over
and shut it off, which seems to have been what caused the
problem with the engine in the afternoon – these things
are designed to run standing up! As far as the track is concerned,
it’s pretty cool; I like it. The first seven eighths
are awesome, although I’m not too sure about that last
section, it’s a bit too slow for my liking and I reckon
it would be better if they took the right hand kink out of
it. I would like to be a second quicker but we lost a little
bit of time compared to the other guys with the problems we
had today so hopefully we can have an incident-free day tomorrow
and make the most of both sessions.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – GAULOISES YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“Today we made an uphill start! Colin had a small crash
in the morning and in general both riders were struggling
for the lap times, but they will come. This is a new track
and Friday is basically the opportunity to check things and
see which is the best way to work. We have collected a lot
of information from both riders and the job for the team now
is to look everything over tonight and see how we can improve
the bikes for tomorrow. It is a pleasure for the team to be
competing in a new country like Turkey so hopefully we can
enjoy the success here that we have had at other circuits
this season.”
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