Bautista almost quicker than Melandri.

ok... seems like a positive day... *fingers crossed for the weather....... and I hope Loris takes it easy this race... as far as Ducati is concerned i suspect it to be a rocket and not a bike... definately electronics driving the bike again and not Casey Stoner....

i hope for a good Quali and an awesome Vale race...

and we are lucky to atleast get the race live here in India... all the quali results and everything we only know when we see the race... but ofcourse now I have the awesome Yellow Community so i get to know the times almost live...

F1 gets ALL the coverage when it comes to motorsports here...

and back to topic... Hopeing for a dry race and a good and a safe race for all the riders...

a Big thank you to all the wonderfull people who updated us with the times...

Well I hope Vale gets pole tomorrow and Vales crew find something extra out of the bike.

oh yes, he always say ' sirkweet'

Rossi worried about Stoner's speed

By Simon Strang



Valentino Rossi has admitted that Yamaha must speed up software development on their YZR-M1 if they are to stop Casey Stoner and Ducati from overhauling their points lead in the MotoGP world championship.
After a dip in form in the early part of the season, the MotoGP world champion bounced back with a dominant win in the British Grand Prix at Donington last weekend.
Stoner followed it up by blitzing the field in opening practice for the Dutch TT at Assen.
And Rossi believes that such a performance indicates Ducati have turned the corner in their development of the GP8.
"It is not just two tenths [Stoner is ahead], it is seven I think, so more than half a second," he said on Thursday. "It looks like Ducati are able to use something that before was not ready.
"I think in the engine department or the electronics to open the throttle.
"Casey has riden very fast and on the limit all season, but now he is one second faster, so they must have found something different that is very strong to use."
Rossi urged Yamaha to pull out all the stops and speed up development of their own engine software in an effort to match the Ducati for pace. But he added that he feared it would be difficult to do this before MotoGP's month-long summer break, which begins after Laguna Seca on July 20.
"We are already working in the same direction to make for better acceleration, but it is not ready yet and we are waiting for new software as soon as possible," he said.
"Now with the performance of Stoner I think we try to force it through faster. But I don't know if it is possible before the break.
"Also maybe you need to test it and have one full day, and now the next test is in Brno. We try to force the time from an improvement point of view and we hope it is ready as soon as possible."

Thats not a good sign, I'm not sure Vale can do anything this weekend about KC!

From Yamaha

Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi returned to one of his favourite race tracks today, as the 60th Dutch TT got started in bright sunshine at Assen. Rossi won the race from 11th on the grid last year, arguably his best performance of 2007, and the Italian is keen to emulate his success with another win on Saturday. He started well today by finishing the first day of free practice in second place, although he was 0.732 seconds off Casey Stoner and will be looking to improve on this tomorrow.

This morning saw Rossi in sixth position but some set-up alterations for the afternoon session brought about a good improvement in his lap times and the Italian was one of only three riders to lap under the 1'37 mark, the others being Stoner and Tech 3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards. Rossi lapped consistently in the high 1'36s, already well under the circuit record, but he will be aiming to shave a few more tenths off tomorrow in order to narrow the gap to Stoner. Rossi's team-mate Jorge Lorenzo meanwhile finished the day 14th in the combined standings after a difficult day in which he struggled for front-end feeling.

Valentino Rossi - Position: 2ndTime: 1'36.819Laps: 56
"Second place this afternoon is not bad at all, considering that this morning we had some problems. This afternoon we made some modifications and we started to improve quite a bit. We are still struggling in some points of the track however and this shows in the gap that we still have to Stoner. During this afternoon's session we understood some interesting things, which we hope will help us tomorrow. Today, however, it seems like I am the leader of the 'other' championship!"

Davide Brivio - Team Manager
"This afternoon we made a good improvement to our setting compared to this morning, and our pace got better accordingly. Compared to the majority of the field in fact our pace is very good, the problem is Casey! In order to fight with him it's clear that we're going to need to work even harder and improve even more, so this is what we will do. It seems that we now have a good base setting so now we will just try to make the next step. The weather today has been fantastic - a nice change from recent races - so we hope for more of the same tomorrow so we can keep on improving."

1 Casey Stoner Ducati AUS 1'36.087
2 Valentino Rossi Yamaha ITA 1'36.819
3 Colin Edwards Yamaha USA 1'36.931
4 Nicky Hayden Honda USA 1'37.012
5 Alex De Angelis Honda SMR 1'37.126
6 Shinya Nakano Honda JPN 1'37.137
7 Randy De Puniet Honda FRA 1'37.187
8 John Hopkins Kawasaki USA 1'37.251
9 Daniel Pedrosa Honda ESP 1'37.280
10 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki AUS 1'37.282
11 Andrea Dovizioso Honda ITA 1'37.326
12 Sylvain Guintoli Ducati FRA 1'37.357
13 James Toseland Yamaha GBR 1'37.838
14 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha ESP 1'37.960
15 Loris Capirossi Suzuki ITA 1'38.082

GO VALE GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--------------------------------------



Capirossi out of action at Assen, no replacement ride for Spies

Rizla Suzuki´s Loris Capirossi made a brief and ultimately ill-fated return from a broken hand sustained at Catalunya earlier this month, as he crashed out on day one of the A-Style TT Assen.


Having set the twelfth quickest time in the morning practice Capirossi crashed on a fast left-hand corner and high-sided his Suzuki GSV-R in the afternoon, tumbling towards the gravel at high-speed, with his right inner forearm stuck underneath the bike resulting in a substantial and deep hole.

Capirossi was immediately taken to the Assen medical centre and operated on to repair the wound and he will now need to rest the injury meaning no further participation this weekend.


After a meeting later in the afternoon it was decided that AMA Champion Ben Spies - who is present at Assen - will not replace Capirossi, perhaps due to mixed weather forecasts for Friday which would complicate the substitution process.


Rizla Suzuki Team Manager Paul Denning explained, `When things are difficult it often seems to be the case that it gets more difficult before it becomes easier again. Loris knew it wouldn´t be easy to come back after seventeen days since he broke his hand, but he immediately justified his decision to be here by being able to ride at a decent speed, to supply good feedback and know where we were heading over the weekend.´


`I think it is necessary to make it clear that the crash was nothing to do with his recent hand injury and it was just one of those things that happens in racing. He was lucky that he didn´t break anything or cause more damage to the original injury, because it is a really fast place to crash. Unfortunately the bike got on top of him and ripped a sizeable piece of flesh from his right forearm. Dr Costa and his team performed an operation to close and stabilise the wound and Loris will now start his recuperation to get himself fit again – for sure it will be Sachsenring in two weeks time.´


`On a brighter note, despite some problems this morning, Chris has been able to complete the day's evaluation work, and on tyres that were past their best he was able put in his fastest time at the end of session two. That put him only a few tenths off of a top three position. Apart from Casey Stoner all the riders are really close at the moment and we feel confident that Chris and the GSV-R have got quite a lot to give over the rest of the weekend!´

i hate that !!! I hate when KC is fast!!! I don't wanna see the scenario of the last season !!!
Hope everything will be ok !! I can feel it...this week end will be great for Vale and for us....

Ah, thanks for posting that... was wondering about that largish time difference...
Funny, sounds like Valentino is praying for better or more TC these days!

The other ominous note is that perhaps the Yam hasn't managed to come close to matching the ducati's speed as it appeared earlier on in the season... it was only that the ducati sucked.

Yeah, it gave me a bit of a pang... but then, we all know what a master of race politics Valentino is... KC said last year at Assen the wind gave him problems... and even though KC had blitzed the rest of the field... Valentino didn't have the same probs and showed em how it was done. ANd that was with last year's M1 and the better, faster GP7...

So KC may have speed galore... but it didn't get it done for him last year... Valentino, as we all remember, totally sucked in qualifying... so really, I guess we should put all our "pangs" away and not worry YET.

More about if Valentino gets a great race setting and if ducati don't manage to fix whatever their prob was last year... which wasn't a lack of speed...

If Vale makes up 0.7 tomorrow (& Saturday) it will be the greatest thing he & the team have ever done. Because I doubt very much that they can do it on set-up alone. We just have to hope Vale keeps his consistancy upto the summer break & see what happens, because it looks like 0.7 is the way it's going to be.