From a press release issued by Red Bull Yamaha:

MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIX
FRIDAY 11th October 2002

RED BULL Yamaha’s Garry McCoy defied popular opinion by slotting his two-stroke YZR500 into fifth place on the provisional grid for Sunday¹s Malaysian GP.

The Australian finished top two-stroke rider, and his performance went against expectation that the 990cc four-strokes would be dominant at the ultra-modern Sepang circuit.

The superior power of the four-strokes is a significant advantage on the long 3.447 miles lap, particularly on the two long straights running either side of the huge main grandstand.

McCoy elevated himself up to fourth just after the halfway mark, using the extra grip of Dunlop’s qualifying tyre to get himself in a challenging position with a tropical storm threatening to engulf the circuit.

With huge lightning strikes illuminating the gloomy skies above, McCoy’s best time of 2:05.743 almost saw him claim a place on the front row.
A late charge by Pacific GP winner Alex Barros relegated him to fifth. McCoy’s time was 0.2s faster than his previous best at Sepang when claimed a front row start a year ago.

Despite the overcast conditions, air temperatures still reached a gruelling 35 degrees C, with the track temperature peaking at 49 degrees C, making the track slick and grip hard to find.

Teammate John Hopkins will be hoping for better fortunes tomorrow after he ended up 19th fastest. As if the punishing heat and humidity wasn’t a difficult enough challenge to contend with, McCoy and Hopkins find themselves trying to make an impression against a fresh influx of four-strokes.
Three more appeared today, taking the number to 13 out of the 22-strong field for round 14 round of the MotoGP series.

GARRY McCOY ­ Fifth 2:05.743
“It’s my fastest ever lap at this circuit but I was actually hoping to go even faster. It’s good to be where I am but I’m actually disappointed to be only 0.2s faster than my previous best ever time here. At most other tracks I’ve been a second faster and that was what I was hoping for here. It turned out to be a bit of a race against the rain. I put a qualifier in early to get myself up there and I got up to fourth. I don’t have a lot of good options for a race tyre though. I tried another qualifier at the end of the session to go quicker but it didn’t happen.”

JOHN HOPKINS ­ 19th 2:07.761
“I was working through a load of race tyres but if we want more grip we’ve got to keep trying a load of different suspension settings, even though there was more grip than this morning. When I put a qualifier in I made a couple of mistakes in T1 and aborted the lap. I feel in good shape, the conditions are not having a major effect on me and I’m looking forward to a big improvement tomorrow. It’s getting really frustrating now seeing everyone getting four-strokes. There are more coming every weekend and I’ve just got to keep my focus, go day-by-day and concentrate on the weekend.”


PETER CLIFFORD – DIRECTOR OF RACING
“That was an epic ride from Garry. It just shows there’s life in the old dog yet, and I’m not talking about our Australian. We have to say a big thanks to Dunlop and I’m sure John will not be far behind tomorrow.”



More, from a press release issued by Marlboro Yamaha:

MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIX, SEPANG
First Qualifying, Friday October 11 2002

MARLBORO YAMAHA MEN CHASE HIGH-SPEED PERFORMANCE
Marlboro Yamaha Team YZR-M1 riders Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa completed this afternoon’s opening Malaysian GP qualifying session sixth and 11th fastest, looking for more high-speed cornering performance from their YZR-M1s.

With dark storm clouds threatening at Sepang, the pair worked tirelessly in oppressive heat and humidity, and are now consulting their technicians to find a new direction for the rest of the weekend.

“Today has been difficult,” admitted YZR-M1 project leader Ichiro Yoda. “Both Max and Carlos are losing a lot of time through the T3 section, which is mostly high-speed corners. Neither of them feel very comfortable through these corners at maximum lean angle, and it seems we have a lot of rear-suspension movement through these turns. We will now analyse our data and compare it to the data from our tests here last December. Even though the bikes are very different now, maybe we can learn something from that, especially regarding rear-suspension movement.”

BIAGGI ON PROVISIONAL SECOND ROW
Pole sitter three times so far this year, Max Biaggi was sixth at Sepang this afternoon, 0.805 seconds off provisional pole position. The Marlboro Yamaha Team rider, who lapped faster during winter team tests, spent much of the session around tenth, moving up to a provisional second-row slot during his traditional end-of-session charge.

“I don’t really understand why we’re not running as fast as we did when we tested here last December, because the bike is much changed and much better now,” said the Italian. “We tried various different settings this afternoon, so far without any dramatic improvement. It’s too early to predict how the race will go for us, but I hope to cut the gap to pole by at least half tomorrow. Then we’ll see if we can be competitive on Sunday.”

CHECA 11th BUT STILL CONFIDENT
Carlos Checa had a rather more difficult day, ending up provisional 11th fastest. But the Marlboro Yamaha Team man is confident that his crew will be able to take a new direction with settings to get him back on the pace for Saturday and Sunday. So far this year Checa has qualified on the front two rows at 12 of 13 GPs.

“It was impossible to go really fast today,” said Checa. “I tried hard all through the session, with both bikes, but they both pushed the front. We made many changes but only found small improvements to front-end stability and grip. It’s difficult to keep the bike on angle, especially at speed. But I know we can improve from here. We just need to keep working and find a different direction.”



UKAWA HEADS BIGGEST-EVER FOUR-STROKE PACK
Tohru Ukawa was quickest today, just ahead of Honda team-mate Valentino Rossi. “Our bikes were down on power this morning, which knocked out our gearbox and suspension settings that worked so well here during winter tests,” said Ukawa. “But the team worked very hard for this afternoon and things are much better now.”

Olivier Jacque and team-mate Shinya Nakano are the latest four-stroke converts at Sepang where four-strokes account for more than half the MotoGP grid for the first time. “Riding the 500 had been very frustrating,” said Jacque, who’s still adjusting to the M1 and was 16th quickest. “The four-stroke is very fast, though it doesn’t feel as quick as the 500 because the power delivery is smoother. It’s also easier to control wheelspin with the four-stroke.”



More, from a press release issued by Proton Team KR:

McWILLIAMS PILES ON THE PACE AT SEPANG

Round 14: Malaysian GP, Sepang
First Qualifying: Friday, October 11, 2002

Jeremy McWilliams: Ninth, 2:06.089
Nobuatsu Aoki: 14th, 2:06.731

Jeremy McWilliams once again exceeded expectations in Malaysia today, with a blindingly fast lap of the Sepang circuit that not only made a nonsense of the team’s fears that they would be seriously off the pace at a track with two long straights, but also put him narrowly third-fastest two-stroke, right among the four-stroke MotoGP machines.

Team-mate Nobuatsu Aoki was 14th fastest, and struggling with settings. To make more progress for Sunday’s race, he expects to make radical changes to the machine overnight for tomorrow’s final qualifying session.

The Proton KR3, racing close to the Malaysian home of the team’s name sponsor and technical partner Proton cars, is a lightweight three-cylinder 500cc two-stroke up against more powerful four-cylinder two-strokes and the new-generation 990cc four-strokes, more powerful again.

The pay-off is agile handling and very high corner speed, but the two straights at Sepang, both approached from slow corners, punish the concept. This was proved by McWilliams’s section times. On the twistier sections, he was fastest or close to fastest; on the final T4 section, including one straight and part of the other, he was losing more than he was gaining elsewhere. He was less than one second off pole time, set by Honda four-stroke rider Tohru Ukawa, but 1.1 seconds slower on T4. But for the straights, he would be a serious candidate for pole.

There are two more hour-long sessions tomorrow before Sunday’s race, the 14th of 16 rounds in the MotoGP world championship. Next season, Proton Team KR will be fielding their own V5 990cc four-stroke, which was launched at a packed press conference at the Proton factory yesterday.

JEREMY McWILLIAMS
As always, I was trying pretty hard. I’m less than a second off pole, and I’m losing more than a second on the two straights. That says it all, really, about how I’m trying, and how well the bike is working on the corners. When you look at it in black and white on the time sheets, it’s very frustrating. I was fastest in T2, and third in T3, so I’m picking up a bit there. I think we can make our bike quicker. My chief engineer Tom O’Kane has some ideas on how to make the engine more free revving on the straights. Apart from that, we already have a good tyre – surprisingly in this heat it’s not the hardest, more of a medium compound. If it stays dry, I believe we can race in the top six or eight.

NOBUATSU AOKI
Today was really difficult. At Motegi, we went to very hard settings, and we brought them here too – but they didn’t work at all. I have a real grip problem at the front, even worse than usual. I think tomorrow we’ll go back to standard settings and begin again. It’s not ideal, but always so far my team has been able to give me a good bike in time for the race, and I believe they will be able to do it again here.

KENNY ROBERTS – Team Owner
It’s a lot better than we thought. As at some other tracks where we knew we’d be battling, Jeremy and Nobu have pulled it out of the bag, and they’re running a couple of seconds faster than last year on the same bike. We really need some help on the straights, drafting faster bikes, and Jeremy did that lap all on his own, with no slipstreaming. It shows that if we had another 50 horsepower, we’d be beating them. Take away the second we’re losing on the straight and you can see how competitive the bike can be.



More, from a press release issued by Fuchs Kawasaki:

MOTOGP 2002
ROUND 14 – SEPANG, MALAYSIA
11TH OCTOBER 2002 – QUALIFYING PRACTICE 1

PITT SLASHES 2.5 SECONDS IN TWO SESSIONS

Australian rider Andrew Pitt, World Supersport champion in 2001, made a more than promising if unexpected GP debut at Sepang in Malaysia today, with his first ever outing on a full MotoGP prototype, on the brand new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR.

Not unexpectedly, the young rider was placed at the back of the grid. More significantly, he cut 2.5 seconds off his lap time from the morning to the afternoon session, and was comfortably inside the qualifying time for his first GP.

This is an impressive start, on a bike still in its infancy, and for a rider whose previous experience has barely come close to the levels of power, speed and competitive riders that he met for the first time today. Pitt has never seen the Sepang circuit before, has never before used slick tyres, carbon brakes or a fuel-injected engine, and the ZX-RR has some 80 horsepower more than any other machine he has ridden before.

There is one more day of qualifying for Sunday’s Malaysian GP. Pitt was drafted in to the team at short notice, after regular factory tester Akira Yanagawa was injured in a race crash last Sunday at the Japanese GP at Motegi. Pitt will race the prototype Kawasaki at the remaining three GPs of this season in Yanagawa’s place.

Andrew Pitt – 22nd in 2:10.628:
“I watched the Motegi Grand Prix on television and I thought the bike was a bit of a handful. But when I went out for my first laps this morning, I was very surprised how user-friendly it was, not wild at all, and with a smooth power delivery throughout the power band. Only on the initial part of the throttle opening, the fuel injection system feels a bit rougher than the carburettors. It took me only about one lap to get familiar with the carbon brakes that I’d never used before, and from that point on, it was just a matter of gaining track knowledge and experience with the bike. We didn’t change much on the bike between the sessions, just minor modifications to make it steer a little easier, and I still got faster lap by lap and improved by 2.5 seconds from the morning to the afternoon. Obviously, it’s a big step up from my Supersport bike and the Superbike that I tested occasionally. It’s definitely good to ride a bike that powerful, and it’s amazing to still feel it pushing ahead in top gear at the end of the straight. Tomorrow, I’ll just try to improve further and to take another couple of seconds off my time!”

Takashi Yasui – Staff Officer, Kawasaki Research & Development Division:
“We made some engine improvements after the problems we had in the race at Motegi one week ago, and the bike has been running great on our first day of practice. The biggest task is on Andrew’s side as he has never been on this track before and as he never tested the Ninja ZX-RR, but he already improved significantly in the two sessions of today, and no doubt he’ll go faster again tomorrow as his track knowledge improves!”

Harald Eckl – Team Manager:
“Andrew has never been on this track, he has never had carbon brakes, he hasn’t been on slick tyres, hasn’t had a fuel injection, and is confronted with 80 more horsepower than the Supersport machine he rode all year long. Therefore, his progress is remarkable. It was easy to see how he was getting out of the corners better and better towards the end of the first qualifying, and I have no doubt that he will be able to close the gap to the others tomorrow!”


More, from a press release issued by MS Aprilia:

Difficult day for Régis Laconi at Sepang

In the torrid heat of Malaysia, with 39°C in the air and 42° on the tarmac, Régis Laconi and the Cube came up against a difficult first day of tests. Lack of grip on the Malay asphalt prevented Régis from improving his position and going for a provisional position on Sunday’s starting grid worthy of the Cube’s potential and of his skill. His four tenths slower than the time he made in this morning’s free practice put him back in 21st position in today’s qualifying ratings. Just as the MotoGP session came to an end, the first drops of water announced an approaching storm.

# 55 Regis Laconi – (MS APRILIA RACING) – 21st – 2’08.307

“It was very hard today – I haven’t got grip on the corner of the tyres and I haven’t got traction. When I try to open up the throttle as I come out of the corners, the bike starts skating and turns sideways. This obviously means I can’t get the engine’s horsepower down onto the ground. I’ve been having difficulty with the front tyre too: I can’t keep the bike on the trajectory of the curves and I get the feeling the front tyre is just goes where it wants to. It doesn’t seem to bite into the tarmac. This is certainly due partly to the high temperature of the track, but now we need to find a solution so that we can become more competitive.”