Ducati Marlboro Team riders Loris Capirossi and Sete Gibernau endured a challenging third round of the 2006 MotoGP World Championship at Istanbul Park yesterday, finishing sixth and eleventh. The result was much less than the team had expected after some promising performances in practice and qualifying.

The Ducati Marlboro Team had travelled to Istanbul in fine spirits, having made a dazzling start to the 2006 MotoGP series, establishing early leads in both the riders' and constructors' World Championships. Loris Capirossi won at Jerez on March 26 and took third place in Qatar on April 7 to build a five-point lead in the riders' title chase, his Desmosedici GP06 performing superbly at two very different racetracks. This weekend the Italian was facing a major challenge though because he was new to Istanbul Park, having missed last year's inaugural Turkish GP through injury. Team-mate Sete Gibernau meanwhile was to keep building momentum in Turkey after a fine ride to fourth in Qatar. The Spaniard, who suffered DNF disappointment at Jerez, was right on the pace in MotoGP's gruelling desert race, proving that he has really got to grips with the GP6 and its Bridgestone tyres.

QUALIFYING

Gibernau and Capirossi turned in strong performances in the dismal conditions that accompanied Saturday afternoon qualifying at Istanbul Park. Despite a soaking wet and treacherously slippery track, the pair qualified third and fourth quickest. Gibernau would thus start from the first row for the second time this season while World Championship leader Capirossi would lead row two, his first time off the front row this year.

Both riders were particularly impressive in qualifying because this was only Gibernau's second serious wet-weather outing on his Desmosedici GP6 while Capirossi was making his first visit to Istanbul Park. And both riders suffered from meeting traffic on their best laps. The pair also exploited the massive grip of their Bridgestone rain tyres to brilliant effect in that morning's practice session, Capirossi first and Gibernau second, a whole second ahead of their nearest challengers.

"We're happy," said Gibernau after qualifying, "I've not ridden the bike so much in the wet, so for now we're doing better than we thought we would in these conditions. Ducati and Bridgestone are doing an outstanding job and I'm very happy with that. I was pushing hard today because it's important to know you can be fast whether it's dry or wet. If you want to race for the championship you have to be competitive no matter what. I think we proved today that we can be up there in the rain as well as the dry."

Meanwhile, "Fourth isn't bad at all," added Capirossi. "I found some traffic, so I wasn't as fast as I'm sure I could have been, but the fact that I know I could've been faster makes me feel good. The conditions were strange, this track isn't too grippy in the dry but it's got good grip in the wet, though you have to be careful not to touch the white lines.
 

"I hope it will rain for the race because I've not had much time on a dry track and we still need to work on our dry settings. A dry race would be more difficult for me. Yesterday I was only four tenths from 'pole' but I feel comfortable in the wet. We are competitive in all conditions which is good for the championship. Today's qualifying session was nice and if it's the same for the race I think there will be a few of us up front."

RACE

Gibernau had particularly high hopes after placing third in yesterday's wet qualifier and leading this morning's dry warm-up. And he looked in superb form in the early stages of the race, leading from the first turn until the end of lap 11, when tyre concerns began to push him down the order. Capirossi, who went into the race leading the World Championship, also had every reason to expect another fine result after qualifying fourth and placing third in morning warm-up. He battled hard throughout, ending the first lap in seventh, then slipping to eighth before fighting back to sixth on the final lap. Capirossi goes into round four in China in two weeks holding second overall, just one point behind Nicky Hayden. The race, run in cool but dry conditions was won by Italian Marco Melandri.

"I can't say I'm happy with sixth, that's not where we should be," said Capirossi after finishing sixth. "This weekend we were pretty good in the wet but we didn't have enough time to prepare for a dry race, so it didn't go as we had expected. Anyway, we are just one point off the World Championship lead and we scored some useful points for what is a very long and difficult championship. We did well to take home what we could, plus we were also the first Bridgestone team at the finish. We knew this track might be difficult, so we came here with many tyres but we preferred not to risk new tyres for the race, choosing what we thought would be best. Now we go to China, which will be another difficult track, so we will keep working like crazy. We started the season in the best way and now we have to maintain that focus and keep doing our best."

"There's not much to say really apart from that we had a rear-tyre problem," commented the 11th place finishing Gibernau. "I couldn't do anything about it. The bike was working okay and I was feeling comfortable in the lead, but from lap four I started to feel some vibration from the rear. I was thinking about coming into the pits to change the tyre but I decided to keep going. It's a pity, I was feeling confident."

"That wasn't a great day for us," added Livio Suppo, Ducati's MotoGP Project Manager. "For sure, we got much less than we expected after practice and morning warm-up. We certainly suffered from having no dry track time yesterday because we couldn't do any long runs with race tyres, but that was the same for everyone, of course. We knew that we had to keep our feet on the ground after our great results at Jerez and Qatar and we knew this would be a difficult track for us. We must keep our positive attitude, and at least it was great to see Sete lead for ten laps and Loris fight like a lion to gain the 6th position. We know Bridgestone is working hard, as well as all our technical sponsors, first among them Shell Advance. With their support better days will come soon."