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The Fiat Yamaha Team make the
Mediterranean road trip from the east coast of Italy to the
west coast of Portugal this week aiming to put their biggest
disappointment of the season behind them after a home Grand
Prix to forget at Misano. Valentino Rossi's retirement from
that race was his fourth non-podium finish in as many races
- his worst run since 2000 - whilst tyre problems returned
to haunt Colin Edwards in a race that saw Casey Stoner take
his eighth victory of the season.
With 85 points now separating Stoner from
Rossi at the top of the championship and just five races
remaining it appears that the 2007 is almost out of reach,
but until the mathematics confirm it the Fiat Yamaha Team
will refuse to wave the white flag - especially with a
circuit like Estoril on the horizon. Its location on the
western tip of Europe, just seven kilometres from the
Atlantic coast, makes it vulnerable to dramatic changes in
weather and with high gusts of wind, meaning that the riders
can take nothing for granted.
Even the layout of Autodromo Fernanda
Pires de Silva circuit is one of extreme contrasts. It
features one of the longest main straights in MotoGP and a
tight chicane, which is one of the slowest corners on the
calendar. Several other twisty sections contribute to the
lowest average speed in the championship and the throttle is
seldom overworked on the tortuous infield sections, which
are riddled by a host of second and third gear bends.
However, the 200km/h kink at turn five and the final
Parabolica corner are two of the toughest tests of any rider
and machine's cornering prowess and make for exciting
viewing.
Valentino Rossi
As well as having a score to settle after his disappointment
at Misano, Valentino Rossi has extra reason to look forward
to Estoril thanks to his fantastic record at the Portuguese
circuit in the premier class. The Italian has finished on
the podium on each of his seven visits, including a sequence
of four successive victories from 2001 to 2004, and narrowly
missed out on adding to that win tally last season when he
was beaten to the line by Toni Elias by just 0.002 seconds.
"Misano
was a great, great disappointment," said Rossi.
"To not have the chance to
fight and to finish after just a few laps was a terrible
thing, but now we just have to put it behind us. We got back
to work straight away on Monday for the test and we did some
really good work with Michelin - it seems that they found
some good new tyres and overall it was quite an encouraging
test, much more than the last one. Hopefully we will be
ready in Estoril with a package with which we can fight. To
be honest the championship is almost out of reach for us,
especially when Stoner is so strong, so we will put all our
energies into holding onto our second place and winning as
many races as possible, as well as thinking about continuing
the development of our package for next year. Now the aim is
to have a good end to the season.
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With 85 points now separating Casey Stoner from
Valentino Rossi (above) at the top of the
championship and just five races remaining it
appears that the 2007 is almost out of reach. |
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The Fiat Yamaha Team make the Mediterranean road
trip from the east coast of Italy to the west coast
of Portugal this week aiming to put their biggest
disappointment of the season behind them. |
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"We
have five races left and we will be trying to win all five,
even if the championship is out of our reach. I've had some
good races at Estoril in the past although last year I
missed out on the win by a tiny amount!"
Colin Edwards
Colin Edwards had one of his best weekends of 2006 at
Estoril, finishing just off the podium in fourth place. The
Texan qualified second on the grid and crossed the line less
than a second behind the race winner - a performance he
would love to have the opportunity to repeat this time
around.
"Misano
was another bad day at the office but we learnt a lot at the
test on Monday and I think it was really the most positive
one we've had all year," said Edwards.
"We really seemed to get onto
something with Michelin and I think everyone felt that we
were finally making some good steps forward. We've got a lot
of work to do and it's not going to change overnight but I
think we're all feeling a lot more confident for the next
race than we did after the Brno test. There's only five
races left and the championship hasn't panned out for myself
or Valentino like we hoped, but we've got a great team and
everyone will keep working as hard as they can to give us
all something to be happy about over the final races. I'm
determined to turn things around in Estoril, I had a good
race last year and only just missed out on the podium
and I'll be looking to make up for that this time around."
Davide Brivio
Fiat Yamaha Team Director Davide Brivio is remaining upbeat
despite recognising the size of the challenge that lies
ahead over the next five races. With an 85-point gap to the
championship summit, Brivio admits that the title is a
fading target and says the more immediate concern is to get
Rossi and Edwards back at the business end of the field
after a run of four races without a podium.
"It's not
over yet but we know that a gap of 85 points to such a
strong rival package will be very, very difficult to
recover," admits Brivio.
"All we can do is take it race buy race and try to put
Valentino and Colin in a position to fight for race
victories and podiums as soon as possible. That will be our
goal for Estoril, where we have been very competitive in the
past with both riders. First of all we have to hope that the
tyres are competitive and from there on we can try. The test
at Misano was positive so hopefully that improved
performance carries over to Estoril. We know we have a rider
who is capable of winning races and he deserves to be
winning much more than he is now so we can only try our best
to give him the equipment he needs to do that."
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