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Rossi wins in Australia, even with time penalty

Fastest again
By Dan Moakes October 22 2003
It didn’t matter that Valentino Rossi was already World Champion, because he always wants to win. The Australian Grand Prix was no different, and the Italian was on form once again. Indeed, he had to work harder than usual, in light of a time penalty, but still came out ahead.

The Phillip Island circuit is both popular and scenic, and also provides great competition. For Rossi, it was the setting for his eighth pole position of the season, and the twelfth for Honda’s RC211V. Second on this occasion was the Marlboro Ducati Desmosedici of Loris Capirossi, and team-mate Troy Bayliss lined up fourth on the sister machine, in front of his home fans. Sete Gibernau’s Honda split the Italian bikes.

Row two had three more Hondas, with Nicky Hayden (fifth), Max Biaggi (sixth) and Tohru Ukawa (eighth) joined by Marco Melandri on the first of the Yamahas. The third rank had two more M1s - Carlos Checa ninth, Shin’ya Nakano eleventh - but the more notable performances were by Jeremy McWilliams and Garry McCoy. ‘Jezza’ was tenth on the Proton KR5 - the best for the team since abandoning the old 500cc machine; and Garry recorded the Kawasaki ZX-RR’s best start position by lining up twelfth.

The Suzukis of John Hopkins and Kenny Roberts headed up the next row, from more Yamaha, Honda, Proton and Kawasaki runners. The two Aprilias were also in the mix, and the Harris WCM bikes took up their customary station at the back of the grid.

The race start saw Biaggi powering right to the front, but then he managed to run wide and drop behind Bayliss, Gibernau, Capirossi and Melandri. The Repsol Honda pair, Rossi leading Hayden, were next, from Ukawa and Checa. On a busy opening lap, Hayden moved past his team-mate, and then they both overcame Biaggi quite quickly. Bayliss may have excited the crowd, but at the final corner he was passed on the inside, and Gibernau led the field over the line.

The man on the move in the early stages was Melandri. Passing Capirossi, the 21-year-old pressed Bayliss, passed him on the inside, and then also overtook Gibernau to lead. The first three seemed to be breaking away from the rest, but it soon developed into a six-way scrap. The place-swapping involved Bayliss taking Gibernau on the inside at turn one, and the Repsol pair trading P5.

Hayden and Rossi successively went past Capirossi, so that the order was now Melandri, Bayliss, Gibernau, Hayden, Rossi and Capirossi. At this stage, Biaggi and Ukawa were leading the pursuit, but soon Max disappeared from his position, dropping out of the top twenty for some reason. But the big action was about to happen at the front.

Going into a tight right-hand turn, Melandri managed to clip across the front of Bayliss’ Ducati. The Australian was already on the outside edge of the track, and he went down. Troy was apparently knocked out in the incident, but was later seen waving to the crowd as the medics removed him from the circuit. Reports came back that he was OK, but would be checked out fully in hospital.

Melandri had dropped behind Hayden and Gibernau through all this, but some frantic action saw him go to the front again and then get shuffled back to third, this time behind Hayden and Rossi, and ahead of Capirossi and Gibernau. Rossi got past Hayden at the downhill hairpin, whereupon he started to build up a lead almost immediately.

As ever, Rossi looked to have the advantage over everyone else, but this time he needed it. Not long after he hit the front, the Italian was handed a ten second time penalty, to be added to his final race time. This was as a result of overtaking through a yellow flag zone - at the site of Bayliss’ accident. Although he was clearly in the lead, he would need to extend it to over ten seconds to win. Whoever led the remainder just had to stay close enough without needing to pass.

There followed a supreme display, as Rossi pulled out his best form to bring the lap record down several times. The battle behind had seen Capirossi get a second wind, after having fallen behind Ukawa to sixth. Passing the RCVs of Hayden, Ukawa and Gibernau, Loris got on terms with Melandri once again. They diced for the lead, on corrected times, going back and forth a number of times in a thrilling confrontation.

By the time Capirossi had got firmly in front of Melandri, and began to pull clear, the gap to Rossi stood at around four seconds. The Ducati man sped up in his efforts to remain close to the champion, but Valentino was faster still. The gap went to 6.7s, then 7.5, then 8.8. This remarkable display seemed likely to be enough when Capirossi lost as much as 1.2s in a single lap.

With five laps left, Rossi had 9.9s in hand, and then this went out to 10.3 and he was officially ahead again. His speed undiminshed, ‘the Doctor’ pushed on to the flag. He crossed the line fifteen seconds before the Ducati, for a five second victory that would have been impressive enough in itself. To top it off, he then ran round with a number seven flag, in tribute to Barry Sheene. Capirossi was a valiant second, having got well clear of the group squabbling for third.

The five riders that had been on the tail of Capirossi earlier were down to three by the flag. When Loris had made his move, behind him had been Melandri, Hayden, Gibernau, Ukawa and the rapidly arriving Checa. An impressive outing for Melandri had been spoilt very quickly when the Yamaha man went down, apparently having lost rear grip. A while later, team-mate Checa ran off track at the hairpin. The wet grass hindered his return to the tarmac, and Carlos then found himself down in P8.

With Yamaha’s best chances gone, the race for third came down to Gibernau, Hayden and Ukawa. Where Hayden seemed to have the advantage at the downhill hairpin, twice Gibernau re-passed the American at turn one. Then Ukawa also went ahead of the Repsol man, but Nicky was not done. Going into attack mode, Hayden dealt with Tohru’s Camel Honda, and really pushed Gibernau on the Telefónica bike.

As he had with Ukawa, Hayden dived around the outside of Gibernau through a long left-hand bend, getting on the inside for the next right and taking the position. With it being the final lap, Sete kept the pressure up to the finish, but was just shaded over the line. Ukawa was close behind in fifth.

At one stage, Roberts, McWilliams and Hopkins had headed the Yamaha pair of Olivier Jacque and Nakano, but it was the M1 duo who emerged for sixth and seventh places, respectively, at the finish. Checa wound up eighth, from Roberts, Makoto Tamada, McWilliams, Hopkins, McCoy, Noriyuki Haga, Andrew Pitt, and the non-scoring Colin Edwards and Biaggi.

If Valentino Rossi had still needed to prove his supremacy, this race would have done it. As it is, the result served to improve his points advantage to an impressive seventy-five, and his run of podium results now stands at twenty-one in a row. The big loser on the day was Troy Bayliss, as his non-finish dropped him two place in the standings, on a day when he could surely have equalled his best finish.

Standings after fifteen races: Rossi 332; Gibernau 257; Biaggi 215; Capirossi 161; Hayden 130; Ukawa 123; Bayliss 119; Checa 112; Nakano 101; Barros 91; Tamada 81.


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