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| Ryder Notes: Bright and Breezy
by julian ryder, on the ground at phillip island Friday, September 15, 2006 It ain't as warm as Malaysia (thank God) but it isn't as cold as we feared. Forecasts of sub-zero wind-chill were happily erroneous and it was the men with Bridgestone tyres who were smiling most. Randy De Puniet was fastest but that was with a qualifier, Loris Capirossi's second-fastest time was set on the fifteenth lap of a seventeen-lap run so you can safely assume that was done on race tyres. Gibernau is returning to form, Hayden was by far the best of the Michelin men and Checa's tenth overall on his Dunlops if you combine the two sessions. Interestingly, the only men to manage to go under 1min 31 in both the morning and afternoon were the Ducati and Kawasaki riders. Pedrosa is well off the pace and being bothered more by the broken big toe on his left foot than the stitches in his right knee. The question for tomorrow is can the Camel Yamaha crew find a Michelin tyre that wants to work at the track temperatures we're experiencing. The locals reckon the weather will improve; if so that'll be unusual for the deep south of Australia which is officially still in winter. Things were warm at the Thursday press conference though. The Spanish press has decided that Valentino Rossi's clumsy rostrum celebration last weekend that saw him sit on a chair was a dig at Dani Pedrosa, who spent most of the weekend being ferried around in a wheelchair to avoid pulling the stitches in his knee. Rossi denied this before anyone had asked him a question. The staff of Spain's Solo Moto mag are wearing t-shirts with a drawing on the back of Dani in a wheelchair carving inside a puzzled Rossi. Some of Dani's team have threatened retribution, in this season or the next. It almost overshadowed the same mag's story on Kawasaki which was titled 'Eckl Bastardo'. The team manger is Harald Eckl.ENDS PRIVACY POLICY | HOME | RETURN TO TOP © 1997 - 2006 Hardscrabble Media LLC |
