Round 15 - Turning Japenese I Think We're Turning Japenese I Really Think So...

Gerben24 · 20 Sep 2007, 07:13 (Ref:2018498)

With 4 races still to go (incl. this one) it is really tight at the top of the standings. It is really about the top 2 riders, 5 points dividing them, the 3rd placed rider is 55 points behind the leader. The leader, who is still riding the (better looking) machine from last year.

As the racing in this class is always really tight it is difficult to predict a winner. The top 3 classified riders of last year have moved on and race in one of the support classes now. Expect one or two wildcards as well, although I don't think they will be fighting for the win.

So, candidates for the victory will be; Pasini, Talmasci, Faubel, Gadea, Pesek, Koyama, Corsi and maybe even Espargaro (hero in Portugal).

I always leave after the main event, so don't really know what is happening in the support classes.

I believe Lorenzo can get his 2nd championship in the 250 class with his current lead of 51 points. Dovi and de Angelis have to crash or something for Lorenzo to become champion. The fight for 2nd is still close tho.

In the other support class, Motogp, some bloke called Sthoner (

) has a commanding lead and will most probably take his first championship. However, in Portugal this Spaniard, Rassi, beat him, as he got new Michelin tyres. So we expect another battle although Sthoners Cagiva is probably the bike tho have at Montegi.

BRING IT ON!!

Feel free to change the thread title (if you can).

Hazza · 20 Sep 2007, 07:38 (Ref:2018520)

Sorry, I'm out of ideas for the title.

Peno · 20 Sep 2007, 07:45 (Ref:2018526)

Yanagawa is on a third bike for Kawasaki, Aoki is on a thrd bike for Suzuki and Itoh's replacing Hofmann this weekend.

Hazza · 20 Sep 2007, 08:20 (Ref:2018552)

Sweet!

Maybe my title is correct after all.

Peno · 20 Sep 2007, 09:47 (Ref:2018614)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peno

Yanagawa is on a third bike for Kawasaki, Aoki is on a thrd bike for Suzuki and Itoh's replacing Hofmann this weekend.

Woops. SpeedTV said that Aoki would ride the Suzuki but the Suzuki MotoGP said that it would have Akiyoshi race.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/moto/motogp/40381

http://www.rizla-suzuki-motogp.co.uk...l.aspx?nid=866

Gerben24 · 20 Sep 2007, 10:19 (Ref:2018760)

With all these wildcard entries it will be difficult for Team Roberts to score points.

Roberts is not ruling out a move to WSBK for 2008!

jhansen · 20 Sep 2007, 14:47 (Ref:2018967)

I can't see Roberts continuing on sadly. Hope I'm wrong though.

f1manoz · 20 Sep 2007, 17:19 (Ref:2019075)

Fingers crossed Stoner wraps up the title in Japan.

jhansen · 20 Sep 2007, 17:23 (Ref:2019077)

I think it's a given. Motegi is Bridgestone country. But I would have thought that the Aussies would love to see the title secured at Phillip Island. That would be one heck of a party!

Knowlesy · 20 Sep 2007, 17:35 (Ref:2019097)

Yeah. With the inevitability of the title's destination I kind of hoped it'd be wrapped up in Ozland. It'd be nice.

Motegi just isn't the same.

Hazza · 20 Sep 2007, 22:20 (Ref:2019355)

Well, last time a guy was "Certain" to take the title he got speared off the track at Motegi...

Then again, last time they were there Capirossi dominated the race afaik.

Time for annother wildcard 125 win? or a Ayoyama brother win in the 250s?

jhansen · 21 Sep 2007, 04:36 (Ref:2019447)

FP1 times:

1 Dani Pedrosa 1:48.249
2 Casey Stoner 1:48.491
3 Marco Melandri 1:48.679
4 Randy De Puniet 1:48.689
5 Valentino Rossi 1:48.736
6 John Hopkins 1:48.766
7 Nicky Hayden 1:48.826
8 Toni Elias 1:48.827
9 Carlos Checa 1:48.847
10 Shinya Nakano 1:48.986
11 Kousuke Akiyoshi 1:49.127
12 Sylvain Guintoli 1:49.207
13 Colin Edwards 1:49.368
14 Loris Capirossi 1:49.527
15 Anthony West 1:49.960
16 Alex Barros 1:50.037
17 Chris Vermeulen 1:50.210
18 Makoto Tamada 1:50.237
19 Akira Yanagawa 1:50.606
20 Kurtis Roberts 1:51.167
21 Shinichi Ito 1:52.374

Gerben24 · 21 Sep 2007, 07:09 (Ref:2019483)

FP2 times:

1 Dani Pedrosa 1:47.865
2 Randy de Puniet 1:48.254
3 Marco Melandri 1:48.351
4 John Hopkins 1:48.361
5 Casey Stoner 1:48.444
6 Kousuke Akiyoshi 1:48.457
7 Loris Capirossi 1:48.499
8 Anthony West 1:48.529
9 Nicky Hayden 1:48.552
10 Makoto Tamada 1:48.581
11 Colin Edwards 1:48.614
12 Shinya Nakano 1:48.697
13 Carlos Checa 1:48.715
14 Valentino Rossi 1:48.782
15 Toni Elias 1:48.881
16 Sylvain Guintoli 1:49.383
17 Alex Barros 1:49.392
18 Chris Vermeulen 1:49.555
19 Akira Yanagawa 1:50.229
20 Shinichi Ito 1:50.769
21 Kurtis Roberts 1:51.563

Apparently Rossi all smoked them

Is this going to be another Pedrosa-runnaway-weekend, where he dominates every session?

Suzuki has come up with an impressive wild card entry. Akiyoshi is one tenth away from being the top Suzuki

.

What is going on with Chris Vermeulen? He has been at the bottom of the chart in both sessions!!!

You would almost feel sorry for Kurtis Roberts. Even with two wild cards and one substitute he is still way of the pace. He is only half a second quicker than Mika Kallio, who is the quickest rider in 250 QS1.

Gerben24 · 21 Sep 2007, 07:36 (Ref:2019506)

125cc QP1
1. Pasini
2. Talmacsi
3. Corsi
4. Koyama
5. Faubel
6. Pesek
7. Smith
8. Terol
9. Cortese
10. De Rosa
11. Rabat
12. Espargaro
13. Krummenacher
14. Nieto
15. Olive
16. Ranseder
17. Di Meglio
18. Gadea
19. Bradl
20. Bianco

250cc QP1
1. Kallio
2. Barbera
3. Aoyama (H)
4. De Angelis
5. Dovizioso
6. Lorenzo
7. Simon
8. Aoyama (S)
9. Luthi
10. Bautista
11. Takahashi
12. Simoncelli
13. Locatelli

Bleu · 21 Sep 2007, 09:41 (Ref:2019569)

It's almost sure that Japanese (either with bike, tyres, rider, or combination of them) are celebrating win in MotoGP, only case that doesn't happen is that Kurtis Roberts win. And that's not very likely.

Only Akiyoshi or Yanagawa can make it all-Japanese, so that's not very likely either.

In smaller categories KTM has been strong in recent years, hopefully same trend will continue.

Last two years we had exactly same set of riders winning. That will not happen as Mika Kallio moved to 250s this year. But H.Aoyama and Capirossi have chance to repeat.

jhansen · 21 Sep 2007, 14:25 (Ref:2019726)

Can't remember the last time Stoner didn't lead at least one of the Friday sessions. Michelin have their new compounds available this weekend as well. But judging by the number of Michelin runners in the top 10, maybe the picture is not as clear as it would seem.

bestfit · 21 Sep 2007, 15:24 (Ref:2019775)

Another blown engine for Rossi too. That would be a real worry for Yamaha.

jhansen · 21 Sep 2007, 15:50 (Ref:2019794)

I think Yamaha would be happy to have that stuff out of the way this year, as opposed to next year. Not that they would be thrilled with a blown motor mind you. But there is not much left to play for this year.

f1manoz · 21 Sep 2007, 16:13 (Ref:2019807)

Hmm, from the looks of things, Stoner may have no say in wrapping things up if Rossi's engines keep blowing up...

bestfit · 21 Sep 2007, 16:30 (Ref:2019822)

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhansen

I think Yamaha would be happy to have that stuff out of the way this year, as opposed to next year. Not that they would be thrilled with a blown motor mind you. But there is not much left to play for this year.

He still wants to finish second. Apart from his very first year in 125s Rossi has finished either 1st or 2nd every year since.

jhansen · 21 Sep 2007, 16:35 (Ref:2019832)

Yes, I'm sure it's a huge motivation... But then again, I wouldn't want to finish behind Pedrosa either.

**gomick** · 21 Sep 2007, 23:16 (Ref:2020153)

c'mon vermeulen - get that suzuki sorted

jhansen · 22 Sep 2007, 04:02 (Ref:2020229)

FP3 times:

1 Dani Pedrosa 1:47.155
2 Valentino Rossi 1:47.438
3 Nicky Hayden 1:47.597
4 Casey Stoner 1:47.611
5 Randy De Puniet 1:47.690
6 John Hopkins 1:48.024
7 Marco Melandri 1:48.058
8 Makoto Tamada 1:48.144
9 Kousuke Akiyoshi 1:48.189
10 Sylvain Guintoli 1:48.228
11 Colin Edwards 1:48.232
12 Carlos Checa 1:48.361
13 Shinya Nakano 1:48.562
14 Chris Vermeulen 1:48.599
15 Alex Barros 1:48.599
16 Toni Elias 1:48.614
17 Loris Capirossi 1:48.670
18 Randy De Puniet 1:48.709
19 Akira Yanagawa 1:49.435
20 Kurtis Roberts 1:50.044
21 Shinich Ito 1:50.270

jhansen · 22 Sep 2007, 04:06 (Ref:2020231)

Michelin run the top 3 with Stoner right there. This one definitely has some potential. Wonder how the long runs are looking? Hopefully, it's not a Pedrobot blow out...

bestfit · 22 Sep 2007, 04:35 (Ref:2020235)

But again we have the mirage of the qualifying tyres clouding what is really going on.

Stoner was into the 1:47s on lap 3. His best time was set on lap 4 on (I presume) race tyres. He followed it with several 1:47 laps. I don't think he used a qualifier in this session.

Rossi was the only other rider to get into the 1:47s before the qualifying tyres came out. He did four 1:47 laps on race tyres, the best about 0.2 slower than Stoner's time. He then improved his times on qualifiers to finish 2nd in the session.

Pedrosa was in 5th / 6th for most of the session running around 1:48:2's. He did not get into the 1:47's until he put on a qualifier.

Nicky was nowhere on race tyres running around 9th / 10th in the mid 1:48s. He set ONE fast lap on qualifiers to get 3rd.

What this session proved is that Michelin have a great qualifying tyre. But Rossi was the only Michelin runner to set competitive times against the Bridgestone (Stoner) on race tyres.

Qualifying is in 15 minutes. Things may change...

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