Valentino Rossi hopes the British Grand Prix result that saw him stripped of victory will not affect his world title chase, while the Proton team is battling to solve problems with its four-stroke machine.
Honda racer Valentino Rossi hopes the British Grand Prix result that saw him stripped of victory after the race will not affect his world title chase, while the Proton team is battling to solve problems with its four-stroke machine.
Rossi was given a 10-second penalty almost three hours after the race for overtaking under a yellow flag at the start of lap two. The penalty saw him drop off back to third place in the race. He leads the championship with 167 points, Sete Gibernau has 133 points and Biaggi is on 130.
Rossi was escorted to the race officials’ office to view the incident numerous times on video replays. “The final result of the race is disappointing for me. I was on a fast lap and had just beaten the lap record and never saw the flags,” said Rossi afterwards.
“I didn’t take advantage of the situation and went on to win the race. I only hope the outcome of the race doesn’t affect the championship in the end.
“I know I was the best rider on the day. I deserved the win because I rode well,” said Rossi.
The Repsol Honda will be testing at Brno next week ahead of the German Grand Prix at the end of the month. Team Proton KR will also be testing at Brno after Jeremy McWilliams and Nobuatsu Aoki switched to the old 500cc two-stroke bikes at Donnington Park after problems with the new V5 four-stroke prototype. McWilliams did not finish the race and Aoki ended in 15th place.
“I really wanted to race the four-stroke, but there was an oiling problem, and I wasn’t sure it could make the finish,” said McWilliams. “Then it broke in morning warm-up, so the two-stroke was the obvious choice. I’d only had about 10 laps on it in practice, and the set-up wasn’t right. Then I got a backshifting problem going into the chicane, so I pulled in. To be honest, I didn’t feel like (fighting) to get 18th on a bike that we won’t be racing for the rest of the year. I’d prefer to work hard to make the four-stroke work.”
Proton team manager Chuck Aksland said they would be trying to solve all the little problems next week. “We have plenty of big issues to solve with the four-stroke, but first we need to get it to the point where we aren’t still having niggling little problems,” said Aksland.
“There just hasn’t been time for development work since it arrived. We haven’t had a single day of testing – just one race after another. Now we are going testing in Brno next week, and things will be different when we bring the bike back here next year,” he said.