Portugese Grand Prix 2002

SUNDAY 8th SEPTEMBER 2002 ­ RACE DAY

Red Bull Yamaha riders, Garry McCoy and John Hopkins were two of just 12 finishers in today's wet, 28 lap Portuguese Grand Prix. In front of 31 700 fans the duo safely raced their Yamaha two-stroke machines past the finishing line, whilst eight of their rivals crashed, retired and failed to score.

Hopkins was off the line fast from his 15th grid position, and within 4 laps had moved up 7 places into 8th position. On lap 10, the 19 year old American hit a stream of water on the back straight and had a front-end slide. Fortunately, the superbly fit and focused American was able to control his YZR 500 through the gravel and back onto the track to rejoin the race in 10th place. "Hopper" was aiming for a top ten finish and today's result makes this his fourth top ten finish of the season.

Garry McCoy who finished 11th today was disappointed with his race. He has such fond memories of his previous races in Portugal after winning here in 2000 and placing third in 2001. Today was just not his day and his lack of wet weather riding this year, attributing to his result.

John Hopkins ­ 8th today scoring 8 points
World Championship Classification = 10th on 49 points

"I'm really happy with my race today and I achieved my goal of getting another Top Ten finish and moving back into the Top Ten in the World Championship overall.

I got off the start well and got squeezed on the first corner up onto the paint, going sideways. I managed to pull out of that okay.

I moved up the pack and a few laps later hit a stream on the back straight, which I didn't see before and I had to really pick up the front end. Abe passed me at that point and I tried to make a run on him after that, but it was really slick and I didn't want to push it too hard in those conditions. After that it was a fairly uneventful and I rode my own race. I'm really happy with my Top Ten result."

Garry McCoy ­ 11th scoring 5 points
World Championship Classification = 20th on 26 points
"I don't really have any answers, it's very disappointing. All I can say is I haven't done much riding in the rain this year."

Peter Clifford ­ Director of Racing
"Another fine ride from John, superbly consistent and making the very best use of the equipment. Garry got up to speed towards the end of the race but just lacked the confidence to go from the start."
 

SATURDAY 7th SEPTEMBER 2002 ­ Final Qualifying

Only 0.077 seconds separates the Red Bull Yamaha Team Mates, John Hopkins and Garry McCoy who line up side by side on the grid tomorrow for the 11th Round of the Moto GP World Championship at Estoril, Portugal.

The Red Bull duo are the only Yamaha two-stroke riders to improve on their times from the first qualifying session on Friday and today, are the fastest two-stroke Yamahas on the circuit.

McCoy who has stood on the podium here in the last 2 consecutive Grand Prix is disappointed with his 4th row start but as we know the 30 year old Australian has the ability, experience and grit to fight his way through to the leading pack.

Hopkins is focusing on another strong start after his lightning bolt leap off the grid in Brno and this fit young American is sure to impress us all again tomorrow."

John Hopkins ­ 15th ­ 1'41.092

"Overall I'm disappointed with my result today even though I bettered my time from yesterday. My crew have worked hard overnight to make some improvements to the bike and I'm aiming tomorrow to get a top ten result. I'm going out there to do the best I can and go for it."

I¹ve got a good tyre for the race and Dunlop and my team are confident with what we are going with. I really only had about a 10- 15 minute opportunity today to put on a good time toward the end of the session. The track dried out but it still felt a lot slicker then yesterday."

Colin Davies ­ Race Engineer for John Hopkins

"If we had the full session today I'm sure that we could of found a few more tenths of a second, which would of put John further up the grid tomorrow, but he continues to improve here, as he has done all season."

Garry McCoy ­ 16th ­ 1.41.169

"The bike set-up felt alright this afternoon and we tried some tyres today that we didn't get a chance to try yesterday and they seemed okay. I really did not get enough laps during the qualifying and I'm sure I could have gone a bit quicker but with the rain at the beginning we just ran out of time. This morning in the practice again I did not get enough laps in, but considering this, the bike still seems pretty good for tomorrow."

Christophe Bourguignon (Race Engineer -Garry McCoy)

"The weather conditions really have effected us and we really still don't know about the race tyre for tomorrow. We only had 16 laps that session and we needed more."

Peter Clifford ­ Director of Racing

"Not the huge overnight improvement we were looking for. John was the fastest two-stroke Yamaha today and Garry the second fastest. Enough said."

 

FRIDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER 2002 ­ Qualifying No. 1

Red Bull Yamaha team mates John Hopkins and Garry McCoy finished the first qualifying session today at Estoril, Portugal searching for more from their Yamaha YZR 500's. Hopkins finished 15th fastest in today's first practice session ahead of his Australian team mate McCoy in 17th place.

McCoy's record at this track is nothing short of impressive. He was the winner here in 2000 after starting on pole and in 2001, the Australian finished third behind Rossi and Capirossi. Again during the IRTA test in February 2002, the Slide King was impressive again, setting an attention grabbing time of 1'40.16 before a nasty crash in which he fractured his left leg. McCoy's crew will spend tonight solving technical problems, which resulted in McCoy not being able to extract 100% from his bike in the last lap of this afternoon's windy session.

For the young American, John "Hopper" Hopkins, this is his first race at the dusty, and bumpy 4.182km track. He is looking forward to moving up the grid tomorrow after setting his fastest time today on the last of his 25 laps. Hopkins, who had never competed in a Moto GP until round 1 of the 2002 Season in Suzuka Japan, continues to improve shaving 0.76 seconds off his test time set at the IRTA test in February this year.

John Hopkins ­ 15th ­ 1'41.474

"Overall the session was okay but we've got a some more work to do on our set-up tonight. We'll try a few different qualifiers tomorrow to try to get a tyre, which handles the bumps a bit better. It's a dusty surface out there and the grips generally not that good. The wind really picked up this afternoon especially toward the end of the session, but I guess everyone has to deal with that.

In the practice session this morning, I got the bike a bit to hot going into one of the bottom corner and I just ran onto the gravel and out of somewhere to go, so I had no choice but to put the bike down, nothing big at all, no damage to me and only some scuffing to the faring."

Garry McCoy ­ 17th ­ 1'41.568

"On the final few laps with the qualifying tyre on I followed out Barros and I was set for a hot lap, but my bike had a rear brake problem and it forced me to run wide a couple of times. It felt like the bike was braking without me even touching the brakes at all. When I put my foot on the pedal, it felt like it was hitting the exhaust and there was no choice to do a quick lap. Some of the tyres today weren't really hooking up although there are some good choices available to us and I will try some laps on them tomorrow."


Peter Clifford ­ Director of Racing

"It's terribly disappointing to be so much slower than we were in pre-season testing. Garry had a technical problem which ruined his final run so lets hope things can be a whole lot better tomorrow."