Motegi, Japan 2000

NOT A GOOD DAY FOR REDBULL YAMAHA

Not a good day for the Red Bull Yamaha team riders, Garry McCoy and Regis Laconi.

Both were victims of a mightily confused start that saw pole position holder Max Biaggi 11th part of the way through the first lap. In fact all but Kenny Roberts Jnr from the front row were a long way back, while others like Okada and Gibernau, who had qualified badly, were in major places.

According to McCoy "the inside line was not the place to be. Everyone on the outside line got a rocket start down to the first corner, taking it on a racing line at racing speed.

"The inside runners had to brake to avoid running in to them, as they turned in across our fronts.

Out of all the confusion, Regis Laconi was 12th and Garry McCoy immediately behind him , 13th on lap 1.

By lap 2 of the scheduled 25, they had swapped places. They stayed that way until lap 13, when McCoy ran off under brakes. "I couldn't brake any harder - I was doing an endo, with the back wheel up in the air - and eventually I ran out of track."

Although he rejoined the race in 15th place, his rear disc brake broke three laps later, probably due to stones caught up in it when he ran into the gravel.

"I heard this harsh mechanical noise, so I pulled in the clutch, thinking it must have been that. But it was the rear disc.  "I'm really disappointed. We were always somewhere in the top eight through the practice and qualifying sessions, so I thought that would have been a good finish, somewhere around there.

"However it was a big ask. It was a track I didn't know, so it was too new to us. We had too much work to do, compared with others who had been here last year.

"I was a bit sore today from my fall on Saturday but ultimately that wasn't the problem. My right ankle and shin were sore (I couldn't pull my toes up).  My left arm and right thumb near the scaphoid were also sore.

"When I fell off, I was in a bit of shock for a few seconds, until I did the scaphoid test - clenching my fist then seeing if I can also move my wrist.
If you can't, the scaphoid is broken.

"I think I'll be even more sore on Monday.

"But the important thing is I wanted to get to the last round, safe, fit and ready to race. I should be all right in a week and a half's time."

"It's not so much that it's my home race. More that it's at a track I know well, where I think we can race strongly.

"I'll be working to get back in front of Carlos Checa, who's now third in the championship, five points in front of me.  

Regis Laconi maintained his record of being the only 500 competitor who has finished and in the points at every one of the 15 rounds so far this year.

"I was disappointed with being pushed back on lap 1 to 12th place but when you start on the fourth row it is hard not to lose ground to the leaders which is impossible to make up, especially at a track like this, with a lot of slow corners.

"Apart from a little problem with the gearbox, the bike ran well. Now I'm looking forward to having a better run at the last round at Phillip Island
in two weeks time."

TEAM RED BULL YAMAHA RIDERS STRUGGLE ON SECOND DAY OF PRACTICE

With a fall on the second lap and recurring front wheel chatter, Garry McCoy struggled to find his rythme during this afternoon’s practice and was unable to improve on yesterday’s time. The Australian did however manage to hold onto his second row position and will start from 8^th on the grid, with the firm intention of making it five podiums on the trot.

Michelin technicians, Pierre Alves and Jacque Morelli, discuss tyre wear after the session

Although team mate Regis Laconi had a more positive session and managed to improve his time, he nevertheless slipped back a row and will start tomorrow’s race from 13^th position.

Carl & Steve put on a qualifying tyre for mcCoy to try in the closing moments of the session

We just had a bad day. Although my bike wasn’t too badly damaged I hurt my right ankle and wrist and my left forearm – normally after a crash I can get straight back out there, but this time it was a struggle. That and the front wheel chatter meant I just couldn’t get into the groove and when it came to putting in the qualifier and trying to improve my time I just wasn’t ready. What I’m hoping now is that we can get the bike set up sorted this evening and use the warm up to find our feet again so that I can maintain my run of podiums.

Garry was going out and coming straight in again, complaining each time of front end chatter - which meant we just couldn’t run the session as we had planned. Four minutes from the end he went out on the qualifier but there was no way he could go out and put in a fast time under those conditions. Now we’ve got some difficult tyre choices to make for tomorrow’s race – but on the positive side the bike’s balance is much better and he isn’t running wide on the corners like he was yesterday.

In many ways we achieved what we set out to do. We got rid of the rear wheel chatter, improved the bike’s stability under braking and found the gearbox ratios we were looking for – all of which means we have an excellent set up for tomorrow’s race. The problem was that our laps with the qualifier simply didn’t go according to plan. On the first one I got stuck behind a slower rider and on the second I pushed my luck a little too far on one of the corners. It means that it isn’t going to be easy on Sunday. But if I can get a good start and stay close to the front runners I should be in the hunt.

The fact that he improved yesterday’s time on a race tyre is very encouraging for tomorrow and I’m happy we managed to get all the problems sorted out. It is just a pity that he couldn’t take advantage of his qualifier. Still Regis often puts in good starts and with the set up he’s got I’m confident he can put in a good performance.

Team Red Bull Yamaha’s decision to send Garry McCoy out to Japan earlier in the season to ride the Motegi circuit on an R7 appeared to pay dividends today, with the Australian rider putting in the 6^th fastest time, despite never having raced here before. Team mate Regis Laconi equalled his best time from last year, but hampered by a variety of set up problems could only manage 10^th place on the grid.

Riding the R7 around here certainly got the looking and learning part out of the way. This morning the bike was quite a long way off what we wanted and we were able to concentrate on that rather than discovering the track. We’ve still got a bit of chatter on the front and if we can get rid of that we should be able to go a bit quicker - but as it stands I’m quite happy with how things went today.

At the beginning of the year I set myself the target of finishing in the top 5. Now I could finish second – though Valentino is looking very strong. But in a way I’d happily sacrifice a couple of places in the championship if it meant I could get some wet race practice in ready for next year.

Garry went about 0.7 of a second a quicker on the qualifier, which is about average – though after our experience in Rio we managed to resist the temptation of using the second one! But once again what really hampered us today was low track temperatures. It meant that only our softest compound tyre was really working and as we don’t have an infinite supply of them we couldn’t run them throughout the session. The other problem we encountered was the bike running wide in the corners. It was turning in fine so we’ll have to look at the front/rear balance and see if we can sort it out that way.

We’ve got a few things to look at tomorrow. The bike isn’t stable on the brakes and here brakes are particularly important. We are also lacking a little acceleration out of some of the corners, though hopefully that is just a question of changing the gearbox ratios. If we get all that sorted out we should have a good bike. This is a good circuit for me and hopefully I can get a result on Sunday.

Regis has got some rear wheel chatter, so we’ll have to look at the suspension settings. We had the same problem in Rio and managed to dial it out, so there’s no reason why we can’t do the same here. Regis isn’t very happy with the front under braking either and we also need to look at the second gear ratio – plenty to keep us busy this evening!