Marlboro Ducati Previews The MotoGP Season Finale At Valencia

Marlboro Ducati Previews The MotoGP Season Finale At Valencia

© 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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From a press release issued by Ducati Corse:

DUCATI MARLBORO MEN IN GOOD SPIRITS FOR SEASON FINALE

The Ducati Marlboro Team comes to Valencia for the final race of the year following a morale-boosting Australian GP. Loris Capirossi scored a storming third-place finish at Phillip Island, the team’s first podium result of the year, to put the Italian-based crew in optimistic mood for Valencia. Team-mate Troy Bayliss also enjoyed a strong ride at his home GP and comes to Spain hoping for another good result.

“We come to Valencia with smiles on our faces,” says Ducati Marlboro Team director Livio Suppo. “It seems like our season started at Phillip Island, so now we can only hope to finish it really well at the final race. It’s been a challenging second year for us in MotoGP – we’ve never stopped working and the bike has been getting better all the time. After improving the engine and chassis midseason we lacked a little luck until we got to Australia, where we were back where we are meant to be – on the front row and on the podium. We also stayed on to test at Phillip Island, acquiring plenty of information that will help our winter development work as we work towards building our 2005 MotoGP bike”.

Valencia is one of the slowest tracks in MotoGP racing, but that doesn’t make it an easy venue for riders and their engineers. “Valencia is a very strange track – very stop-and-go in character,” explains Ducati Marlboro Team technical director Corrado Cecchinelli. “Engine rideability and traction are the crucial performance factors. And there are some very tricky sections – like the final fast left, which riders tackle with full throttle and very little load on the rear tyre as they crest the brow of the hill. We don’t plan to alter the engine mapping for such a tight and slow circuit – we prefer that our riders stay familiar with the bike’s behaviour from one track to another, so they know exactly how it reacts.”

CAPIROSSI OUT TO BUILD ON AUSTRALIAN SUCCESS

Loris Capirossi looks forward to Valencia, hoping to repeat the podium finish he achieved at the track this time last year. In buoyant mood after his brilliant ride in Australia, the Ducati Marlboro Team man is determined to score another strong result that will give him momentum into the crucial winter testing season.

“It’s been a tough year but we have never stopped fighting and we keep learning and moving forward,” says Capirossi. “The Phillip Island race gave us some reward for all that work, it was like a new beginning for us and hopefully we can again fight up front at the last race. Valencia is such a strange racetrack. It’s like a go-kart track which makes it very tough on a MotoGP bike. It is all about slow corners and short straights, so I don’t really enjoy it on a MotoGP bike, I think it’d be a lot more fun on a 125 or 250. I really prefer fast and technical circuits, like the last two we’ve been to in Australia and Malaysia, they are fantastic to ride on a MotoGP bike.”

BAYLISS AIMS TO END SEASON ON HIGH NOTE

Troy Bayliss has already raced to victory at Valencia – when he was competing in the World Superbike series for Ducati Corse – so the Ducati Marlboro Team rider knows the fast way around the tight little Spanish circuit. This time the Aussie will be aiming for a good result to end the 2004 season.

“I’ve always enjoyed myself at Valencia,” says the 2001 World Superbike champion. “I’ve had some good times on a Ducati Superbike there. But the place is much more difficult on a MotoGP bike, simply because you’ve got so much horsepower and there’s so little room to use it at Valencia. It’s pretty much all tight little slow-speed turns, so you never get to even use full throttle for more than a couple of seconds at a time, until you get around to the start-finish. We had a good test session there at the end of last year, so we hope we can carry some of that into the final race of the season”.

THE TRACK

Valencia is the second-slowest circuit in GP racing with an average lap speed of just 154kmh, marginally faster than Estoril. Most of the track’s corners are slow, in-and-out turns, grouped closely together, this unusual layout affording spectators a mostly unobstructed view of the entire circuit – a real rarity in the world of motorsport. It’s an immensely physical circuit with riders afforded little rest between
bouts of heavy acceleration, braking and cornering.

This weekend Valencia hosts its sixth Grand Prix after featuring on the World Championship calendar for the first time in 1999. The circuit is one of several recently created in Spain, where motorcycling racing is the nation’s second most popular sport, after football. The venue is officially christened the Ricardo Tormo circuit, in honour of the late Spanish rider, a former 50cc World Champion.

DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM RIDER DATA LOGS

LORIS CAPIROSSI
Age: 31 (April 4, 1973)
Lives: Monaco
Bike: Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici GP4
GP victories: 23 (1xMotoGP, 2×500, 12×250, 8×125)
First GP victory: Britain, 1990 (125)
First GP: Japan, 1990 (125)
GP starts: 215 (45xMotoGP, 59×500, 84×250, 27×125)
Pole positions: 36 (3xMotoGP, 5×500, 23×250, 5×125)
First pole: Australia, 1991 (125)
World Championships: 3 (125: 1990, 1991, 250: 1998)
Valencia 2003 results: Grid: 3rd. Race: 3rd

TROY BAYLISS
Age: 35 (March 30, 1969)
Lives: Monaco
Bike: Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici GP4
First GP: Australia, 1997 (250)
GP starts: 32 (31xMotoGP, 1×250)
World Superbike victories: 22
World Championships: 1 (Superbike: 2001)
Valencia 2003 results: Grid: 10th. Race: 7th


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