Brawn GP bounce back with one-two at Monza

Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button took Brawn GP a significant step closer to both world championship titles at Monza on Sunday afternoon, in a race rendered dramatic by a last lap shunt for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, as he was pushing hard in third place after Button.

As expected, it was Hamilton who led from the start, using KERS in his lightly-fuelled McLaren to sprint ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Force €ndia’s Adrian Sutil. Barrichello and Button crucially slipped into fourth and fifth places, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen’s fuel-heavy McLaren, which an aggressive Vitantonio Liuzzi also overtook for sixth place in the second Force €ndia.

Hamilton stretched his lead after setting a series of fastest laps, until his first refuelling stop on the 15th lap. Sutil stopped on the 17th, Raikkonen the 19th, those three the only men on one-stop strategies. That left the Brawns one-two from Lap 20 until their much later pit stops, on the 28th lap for Button and the 29th for Barrichello.

That was where the race was won for the Brazilian and lost for the Englishman. Button was 2.1s adrift before his stop, 4.2s after it, and Barrichello proceeded to pull away as they set after Hamilton, Raikkonen and Sutil, who had repassed them while they refuelled. Each had another stop to make, however.

When Hamilton made his on Lap 34 and emerged behind the Brawns, the writing was on the wall, but the champion refused to give in. As Button responded they ate into Barrichello’s 5.4s lead, which dwindled steadily. Barrichello had things under full control, however, and so did Button.

Hamilton, however, did not. Going into the last lap Button was 3.3s behind Barrichello, with Hamilton a second further back. But going through the second Lesmo Hamilton lost control of his McLaren, spun and thumped the inner wall before spinning again and strewing the track with debris. Out went the safety car, as Barrichello crossed the line to score his second victory of the year and to reduce Button’s championship points advantage to 14 points, 80 to 66.

€t was an emphatic victory for Ross Brawn’s team, on a day when Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull took a mere point, and one that was gifted to them courtesy of Hamilton’s shunt. To make matters worse for Red Bull, Mark Webber had been shunted out of the race by BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica at the second chicane, on the opening lap.

Brawn thus have 146 points to Red Bull’s 105.5.

Raikkonen hung on to the final podium place, but Sutil was only four-tenths adrift at the finish as he scored his first points of the season. Liuzzi might have had a shot at the podium with his single-stop strategy, but retired after 22 laps with mechanical problems.

Fernando Alonso thus brought his Renault home fifth ahead of Kovalainen, while BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld held off Vettel for seventh.

Giancarlo Fisichella had a quiet race to ninth for Ferrari, ahead of Williams' Kazuki Nakajima who held off the Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock and, close to the end, triggered an incident in which Trulli nearly collected Glock after having to avoid Nakajima in the middle of the road going into the first chicane. The German chased the Japanese driver home, but the €talian fell back to 14th behind Hamilton and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi.

Romain Grosjean was an undistinguished 15th in the second Renault ahead of Williams’ Nico Rosberg, whose chances were ruined by an early pit stop. Liuzzi was classified 17th ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari and BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, who both retired with technical problems, and an angry Webber was 20th.

While Red Bull will bounce back, the title chase is now beginning to look more and more like an in-house Brawn duel, with Button 27 points ahead of Vettel, and Barrichello 13.

Qualifying - Hamilton pips Sutil to Monza pole

For moments it seemed that Force India were about to celebrate a consecutive pole position, following their Belgian success, after Adrian Sutil lapped Monza on Saturday afternoon in 1m 24.261s in Q3. But right at the very end Lewis Hamilton came blazing round for McLaren with 1m 24.066s to snatch the honour away.

Behind them, the KERS cars of Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen lined up third and fourth, the first Finn lapping in 1m 24.523s for Ferrari, the second in 1m 24.845s for McLaren.

Then came the Brawn GPs, with Rubens Barrichello acing Jenson Button, 1m 25.015s to 1m 25.030s. Seventh, with a good fuel load, was Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Force India (1m 25.043s), ahead of Renault’s Fernando Alonso (1m 25.072s), and the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber (1m 25.180s and 1m 25.314s).

Button had grabbed the fastest time away from Hamilton right at the end of Q2, with Barrichello, Sutil, Liuzzi, Webber, Raikkonen and Alonso in pursuit. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was the first to fail to make it through to Q3 after a lap of 1m 23.611s, which put him 11th ahead of Renault’s Romain Grosjean (1m 23.728s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 23.866s), Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 23.901s) and BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 24.275s). It was not a great session for BMW Sauber, with both cars stopping in Turn One with engine failures.

As Raikkonen set the pace from Hamilton, Button, Barrichello, Kovalainen, Vettel, Sutil and Liuzzi (the two Force India separated by 0.002s!), Toyota nearly lost both cars in Q1, Trulli just squeaking into Q2 as team mate Timo Glock became the first faller with 1m 24.036s to the Italian's 1m 24.014s.

The other two Toyota-engined cars also failed, Kazuki Nakajima lapping his Williams in 1m 24.074s to team mate Nico Rosberg’s 1m 24.121s as they took 17th and 18th. And the two Toro Rossos were at the back, in stark contrast to last year. Sebastien Buemi lapped his in 1m 24.220s to Jaime Alguersuari’s 1m 24.951s. The latter's 20th position renders a five-place penalty for a pre-session gearbox penalty largely meaningless.

Overall, the times up the front are so close that it is going to be a terrific race.

Rossi comments on 2011 Ducati rumours

MotoGP World Champion and Misano winner Valentino Rossi was asked about a potential move to Ducati in 2011 after Sunday’s race, but says he is still to decide on his future.

Speculation in the press linking Italian national hero Valentino Rossi with a move to Italian factory team Ducati resulted in the World Champion inevitably being asked about the subject following yet another victory in Italy, but the MotoGP title holder insists the rumours are just paper talk at present.

The 30 year-old rider took another step closer to what would be a fourth premier class title with his current Fiat Yamaha team and a seventh premier class crown in total on Sunday, and when asked about the 2011 Ducati rumours he replied, “I haven’t decided yet about my future, I will decide in the next year. I have a contract signed already with Yamaha (for 2010). For sure it is a great dream for everybody, to see Valentino with Ducati. We will see, I don’t know.”

Commenting on the superb atmosphere at Misano, which is situated close to his hometown of Tavullia, Rossi enthused, “It is fantastic. This year I really feel like this is my home Grand Prix. Before it always felt more like Mugello was home, but here with all this crowd it is brilliant. It is great for MotoGP to have so many fans and to see everyone with their 46 flags was amazing.”

On whether he had expected a harder battle with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo during the race he stated, “Jorge is always strong but we saw in the practice that we had a little bit of an advantage, so we were able to go a bit faster than him.”

Rossi: ‘It was a perfect weekend’

Valentino Rossi will make the short drive home to Tavullia from Misano with a 30 point advantage in the title race ahead of a three week break, with four rounds to go.

A fantastic performance this weekend at the Gran Premio Cinzano di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini from standings leader and reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi allowed him to put the disappointment of Indianapolis firmly behind him in the Italian sunshine.

The ideal response from Rossi to his Indy DNF was a dominant display of his competitiveness and talent over the three days of the GP, climaxing in a solid race victory in front of his home fans, to wedge a 30 point gap between himself and runner-up Jorge Lorenzo.

Afterwards a delighted Rossi stated, “I am so happy because this victory is more important than normal, coming after a bad mistake in Indianapolis just seven days ago and especially because my team and I did a great job, from Friday afternoon. It was a perfect weekend, we were always very fast in all the practices and we are always proud of all the fans here in Misano. Thanks to them for all their support.”

Describing how the race had worked out from his perspective, Rossi also commented, “I hoped to make a better start and get to the front but Dani (Pedrosa) and Toni (Elías) overtook me on the first corner and then Jorge at the end of the first lap, so I was fourth and in a little bit of trouble. I had a full fuel load and wasn’t 100% confident.”

“I decided to find my rhythm and get the right temperature into the tyres, then I started to push and it was a great race. It was a great battle with Toni, Jorge and Dani. When I got in front I couldn’t see everything behind me but I saw Jorge overtake Dani. I had three or four corners where I was very fast so I tried to use that advantage to the maximum.”

Bautista comments on choosing Suzuki

Thursday, 20 August 2009

Spanish 250cc star Álvaro Bautista spoke to motogp.com about his move into MotoGP with Suzuki in 2010.

Suzuki Motor Corporation’s announcement late on Sunday night at the conclusion of the Brno weekend that they have signed Álvaro Bautista for 2010 ended a lengthy period of speculation about the Spanish rider’s future.

Given his high profile and undoubted talent Bautista had plenty of options for his move into the big time, with many expecting him to stay with Aspar in their new Ducati MotoGP project, but the former 125cc World Champion has elected to go with a more established premier class structure in the form of Rizla Suzuki.

As the 24 year-old rider told motogp.com, “There were a lot of rumours about my future for a long time and in the end there were two clear options, Aspar and Suzuki. Obviously I wanted some of the details of the Aspar MotoGP project to be finalised before making my decision because I’m very happy with the team in 250cc. So between Donington (when Aspar confirmed their Ducati MotoGP deal) and Brno I was able to fully weigh up the pros and cons. It was a really difficult decision but going to Suzuki means I am with a factory team and from a sporting perspective that is what I wanted, so that was my choice.”

“In terms of my expectations for next year, I’m still not sure yet as I am still focusing on 250cc. I know that everything will be new and I will be working with people I don’t know, the majority of them being English. I come from a mainly Spanish and Italian team so that will be a big change and then of course the bike will be totally different. We will have to work very hard in the pre-season to adapt. If (Loris) Capirossi is my team-mate I think that would be a big bonus for me, as he is Italian, with a similar personality to me, a very nice guy with so much experience and someone to learn a lot from.”

Asked what his current Aspar employers made of his decision to join Suzuki, Bautista replied, “Well I think they understand it but they don’t agree with it. Jorge (Martínez) wanted me to be his MotoGP rider and after four years together in 125cc and 250cc it is a shame not to be going into MotoGP together from a professional perspective, but I have made a choice which I believe is correct for me. Jorge is a great person and the whole team are extremely focused, they respect my decision.”

“As Jorge told me, ‘that’s what will happen next year, but we still have a lot of work to do this year!’,” added Bautista.

Meanwhile, giving the Suzuki perspective on signing Bautista, team boss Paul Denning stated, “We are very happy to have signed Álvaro Bautista for next season and we’re excited about the plans. He is still currently contracted with Mr Martínez and the Aspar team though so we don’t want to say too much at this stage as he has to focus on his job to become the 250cc World Champion.”

Barberá to ride for Aspar Ducati in MotoGP

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Jorge Martínez ‘Aspar’ has announced that he will have Héctor Barberá riding in his new MotoGP team next year.

Following months of intense speculation it has been confirmed that Héctor Barberá will ride for the new Aspar team on Ducati machinery in the premier class in 2010.

Currently riding an Aprilia in the 250cc World Championship for the Pepe World Team, Barberá sits fourth in the general standings with one 2009 victory and two additional podiums to his name. He is to rejoin the Aspar structure for whom he rode in the 125cc class in 2002 and 2003.

Team owner and manager Jorge Martínez ‘Aspar’, commented: “This is excellent news for us, to be reunited with Héctor Barberá after so many years. We won the Spanish championship together and Grands Prix in 125cc and I’m sure this will be another great project. We hope for good results next year and we want this to be a long term agreement. Hopefully Héctor can earn factory machinery with his results. For our team it is a dream to be competing in all three World Championship categories.”

Pasini to remain on 250cc machinery this season

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

A good test with Pramac Racing on Monday did Mattia Pasini’s profile no harm, but he will focus on the 250cc championship until the end of the year despite rumours to the contrary.

Although he was tipped to make his MotoGP debut at Indianapolis on the spare Pramac Racing Desmosedici, following the news that he would test for the premier class outfit in Brno on Monday, Mattia Pasini has decided to focus on the 250cc championship until the end of the year.

Rumours suggested that Pasini could ride for Pramac at Indianapolis and Misano, with Casey Stoner still unavailable due to illness and Mika Kallio covering for the Australian in the factory team – and with Michel Fabrizio just making a one off appearance for the satellite Ducati team in the Czech Republic.

But Pramac will have to find another rider for the forthcoming two rounds, despite Pasini’s initial good showing on the MotoGP machine, after the rider, Pramac Racing boss Paolo Campinoti and Pasini’s current 250cc team Team Toth collectively decided it would be best for him to focus on his current challenges in the quarter litre class.

Campinoti commented, “We all know how hard it is to jump on a MotoGP bike and get used to it. Our sincere compliments go to Mattia as he is a guy who never gives up, is tenacious and fully deserved this opportunity, even if we are sorry that he will not be able to ride with us in the next couple of races.”

Pasini himself stated, “It was a sensational feeling to go so fast. I went from doing 255km/h on my 250cc bike on Sunday, to over 300 km/h on the Ducati. It is a really spectacular bike to ride, with such incredible power. Overall I am very satisfied with how things went, but for now I will have to concentrate on the 250cc championship as I still have the possibility to aim for the title.”