MotoGP: Dutch TT to Rossi and Yamaha

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June 26, 2005 Valentino Rossi claimed another win, another record and staked another claim to being the greatest ever when he won the 75th anniversary Gauloises Dutch TT at the famous Assen circuit on Saturday afternoon. In doing so, he became the first Yamaha rider ever to win five consecutive premier-class races and fought off a new challenger to his crown in the form of an ever-improving Marco Melandri. Rossi has always had the ability to find something extra when it counts, but he seems to be regularly performing remarkable feats this year, coming up with several stunners on the weekend to increase his points lead in the 2005 title to 63 points – a buffer of more than two race wins.

The first stunning effort was his qualifying performance, where at the time the chequered flag was hung out, Rossi was on pole with a time of 1.59.415 seconds. Moments after the flag had been waved, Gibernau who had been on a hot lap, snatched pole away from Rossi with a time of 1.59.217 seconds. Rossi meanwhile, was on a hot lap too, and some minute later, he crossed the line and wrested first place on the grid back from his rival with a time of 1.58.936 seconds.

Rossi’s time was a third of a second faster than his main rival in Sete Gibernau, but more importantly, it was a psychological blow in that Gibernau and his team had not been allowed to snatch pole away. Rossi’s time was also two thirds of a second faster than rising star Marco Melandri, the second placed rider in the championship, more than a second faster than his teammate Colin Edwards on the same bike (which had netted him a spot on the second row of the grid) and 1.3 seconds faster than his old rival Max Biaggi.

Rossi was understandably elated after his qualifying performance, telling the press conference, “I am very happy because it is great to ride at this track on a qualifying tyre - the emotion is incredible. The bikes are so fast and this track also, even with the modifications, is still one of the best in the world. I was lucky because I was able to use both of my qualifying tyres at 100%. With the first one I set a 1’59.4, which was a great lap, but I looked at it and thought maybe I could go a little faster. I had to wait a while because there were a lot of riders waiting for me on the last lap and I left it until the last moment, because it’s better to have no one in front of you here when you are trying to set a fast lap. The last lap of 1’58 was fantastic. I’m happy to start from pole position because tomorrow for sure will be a hard race. We’ll wait to see what the weather does but if the temperatures are like today it will be very tough for the riders and the tyres.”

Rossi’s other remarkable feat for the weekend came on the last lap, when he was leading but getting caught by the hard charging Melandri in each sector – his final lap of 2.00.991 was the fastest of the race, nearly two tenths of a second faster than the ever-improving Melandri’s best, but it was done on completely spent race tyres. By comparison, the lap would have given him 14th spot on th starting grid – one tenth of a second behind Carlos checa on the ducati Marlboro Desmosedici and a quarter of a second faster than troy Bayliss on the Camel Honda RC211V, both of whom performed their laps on special “qualifying” tyres which are designed for one to two quick laps and have a useful life of around 15 kilometres at top pace.

Melandri emerged as the most likely challenger to Rossi’s title this year, partly due to his consistency and partly due to his ability to run at Rossi’s pace for the entire race – four riders in the current field have shown their ability to match it with Rossi on some racetracks for a full race– Gibernau, Barros, Biaggi and now Melandri. Melandri looks to be the most likely to eventually match him on all racetracks due to his consistency. This season he has finished third, fourth, third, fourth, fourth, third and second for 107 points – no match for Rossi’s six wins and a second (170 points) but much better than the inconsistencies of Biaggi (87), Gibernau (84) and Barros (74).

Several other factors came into play at the weekend, as the paddock gossip indicates that current 250 champ and runaway points leader in the current 250 series, danny pedrosa, has signed with Honda and will take his place in the official works Repsol sponsored team in 2006. This leaves either Biaggi or American Nicky Hayden without a ride next year and with the American youngster getting better with every performance, and Biaggi’s career in decline, 2005 could be the last chance Biaggi gets on first class machinery.

Perhaps even more telling than Biaggi’s unimpressive sixth place at Assen was yet another bout of self-destructive behaviour during qualifying on Friday. During the session he clashed with Blata WCM rider Franco Battaini, bouncing off the racetrack and rejoining directly in front of his fellow countryman. This left battaini nowhere to go and caused Battaini to crash, fortunately without injury.

Biaggi by then had spent his qualifying tyres and had decided to try a few practice starts on the circuit while other riders were attempting to put in their crucial final qualifying laps (Rossi and Gibernau’s efforts mentioned previously in this report happened in the same time frame. The practice is both dangerous and illegal and blocked Melandri when he was attempting to run at qualifying pace on a fresh qualifying tyre. In the ensuing tangle, Biaggi and Melandri clashed and at the end of practice the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme issued the following statement:

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