EDWARDS NINTH AND ROSSI FORCED TO RETIRE
Valentino
Rossi's hopes of a glorious homecoming to Misano ended after just five
laps today, when an engine problem forced the Fiat Yamaha Team rider to
retire when running strongly in fourth position. Rossi's team-mate
Colin Edwards meanwhile struggled with rear grip in the later stages
and was only able to bring his YZR-M1 home in his starting position of
ninth.
With thousands of passionate Italian fans
looking on, Rossi started the San Marino Grand Prix from second on the
grid with high hopes of an exciting podium battle with chief rival and
pole-sitter Casey Stoner. He dropped one place at the start and another
a few turns later as first John Hopkins and then Chris Vermeulen came
through, but never got the chance to fight back as he lost power in his
engine on lap five of 28 and was forced to coast home to the pits.
Edwards got a good start and rose to sixth at one point, but a lack of
grip on the left side of his rear tyre meant he was unable to make any
further headway through the field, eventually slipping to ninth behind
Anthony West.
With Stoner the eventual winner,
today's result sees Rossi's dream of a late-season championship revival
slip further away as he now sits 85 points adrift in second, with a
possible 125 points left available from five races. Edwards remains
seventh with 100 points. The Fiat Yamaha Team will have a one-day test
here tomorrow, before heading to Portugal in ten days time for round
fourteen.
COLIN EDWARDS
"I
got a good start and managed to miss the big melee with Hayden and de
Puniet. Then Checa almost took me out a couple of times and the second
time I had to run wide and West and a couple of others came through.
Once I'd got sorted again I had my work cut out getting back by West,
but then I just got my head down and got going. Unfortunately however,
the left-hand side of my tyre then started to give me trouble and I had
no grip from then on. There are a lot of quick changes of direction
here, turns one-two and four-five for example, and every time I had to
flick it left it felt pretty scary. I had to adjust my pace accordingly
and from there on in it was just survival and looking to salvage what
points I could. It wasn't fun out there today to be honest!"
VALENTINO ROSSI
"At
the start I felt I was lacking some temperature in my tyres and so I
slipped back a little from my starting position. However apart from
this I felt quite good, stable, with a good rhythm and confident that
things would continue to improve as the temperature in my tyres
increased. However on lap five, when I was braking hard, I suddenly
felt something go and that was the end of my race. The engine was the
same one that I used at the Brno test and also here in practice and it
felt quite good; we don't yet know what the problem was today so we
will have to wait until our engineers have had time to examine the
situation.
"It
would have been great, and very useful, to have a good result here in
Misano today. I like the track a lot and I really wanted to do well in
front of all the fans; it was a great emotion for me to see so many
people in yellow. Unfortunately this wasn't the case today and now we
know that the championship will be very, very difficult. Breaking down
after just a few laps is frustrating and unlucky, especially because
today we had good expectations and we had been fast during practice.
But when bad things like this happen you have only two choices; give up
or come straight back and start working again even harder than before.
This is what we will do at Yamaha; me, my team, the engineers -
everyone involved. We still have five races left and we will keep
trying to get the result we deserve. Once again Stoner deserved to win
today, so well done to him. We have a lot of work to do before Estoril."
DAVIDE BRIVIO
"We
used the new engine today and unfortunately something went wrong. We
don't know yet exactly what, we won't be able to tell until our
engineers have had a lot more time to look at it. It might not have
been anything to do with the new technology, we need to check but this
can happen and this is racing. It's just very disappointing for
everyone and especially all the thousands of fans who came today to
cheer Valentino on. Colin had some rear grip issues and he tried his
best but unfortunately he too was not able to get the result he
deserved. We have to look forward to Estoril now and keep working; we
know that all the Yamaha engineers are very busy trying to improve our
situation and we have confidence in them. Thanks to everyone for their
hard work; we know we are capable of winning and so we will just keep
trying."
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