Som nogle måske så igår aftes, gik det helt galt for Rossi, der nu
står overfor en meget vanskelig opgave i sit titelforsvar, her er lidt
mere info og kommentarer sakset fra crash.net:
Rossi left with 'mountain to climb'
MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi is staring his first title
defeat since 2000 firmly in the face, after suffering a tyre problem -
then an engine failure - during Sunday's US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca.
Just a week earlier in Germany, Rossi had won one of his greatest
races with a stunning tenth to first place charge - reducing the
points deficit to 26 - but, as he had feared, couldn't make the same
kind of impact - from the same lowly grid position - around the tough
to pass Laguna Seca circuit.
Nevertheless, Rossi was closing in on Chris Vermeulen and third place
- behind only world championship leader Nicky Hayden and Repsol Honda
team-mate Dani Pedrosa - when his Camel Yamaha suddenly began losing
rear tyre performance with just a handful of laps to go. A big problem
then quickly became a nightmare as his water-cooling system
malfunctioned (lower picture), causing his engine to overheat and blow
clouds of smoke into the air.
Rossi nose-dived down the order as his engine haemorrhaged, starting
the penultimate lap in eleventh before being forced to pull off track
and retire. By then a black flag had been issued for the #46 (top
picture), although it isn't clear if Rossi chose to stop or simply
lost all drive.
Regardless, the seven-times world champion has now slipped the
furthest behind he has been all season from the championship leader -
being 51 points (over two race wins) from Hayden - with just six
rounds and 150 points still up for grabs.
"We've been in a really difficult situation all weekend, with a lot of
problems and unfortunately things got even worse today," said Rossi
after the race. "We made a big improvement this morning in warm-up and
I was much faster, so I thought that maybe we could do a good job in
the race and to start with we made good progress from our grid
position.
"But then we had a problem with the rear tyre and I lost all grip and
was forced to slow right down in order not to crash. Then we had a
problem with the water-cooling system for the engine, it overheated
and when I saw the smoke, I knew it was over.
"Anyway, now we're 51 points down on Hayden with only six races left,
so for the first time I will race for the rest of the season without
thinking about the pressure of the championship," claimed The Doctor.
"My plan is to have a lot of fun over the remaining races and try to
win as many as possible, and then who knows what might happen?"
"It's been a very difficult day from every angle," confessed team
director Davide Brivio. "Valentino had exactly the same problem with
his tyre (as Colin Edwards – team-mate) and then when he slowed down
the cooling system on his engine failed and it overheated, so he had
to retire. Now we're a lot of points behind in the championship and we
have a mountain to climb, but we won't give up and we will fight to
the end."
With MotoGP now starting its summer break, round twelve of the 17
round 2006 season will take place at Brno, in the Czech Republic, on
August 20.
--
-Michael
Div. VF500-, RS250- og CBR600F-dele m.m. til salg på:
http://www.hondacbr600.frac.dk/index.html