MotoGP Championship 2007 in Estoril, Portugal

Yesterday, the race was held in Estoril, Portugal. Sadly, this time, our TV satellite provider, Astro, didn't show the live telecast. We all in Malaysia, have to watch the delayed telecast on 1.50am (should be 10pm, before).

The race was won by Rossi, his first ever win since Assen. It was the battle between Rossi and Pedrosa for first place. Pedrosa managed to finish at 2nd position with only 0.175 seconds behind Rossi. Meanwhile, Stoner managed to get 3rd postion while the the pole man, Hayden managed to clinch 4th place. It was really a nice race after all.

These were the results for the Qualifying Practice and Race.



Go Rossi, GO!

source from MotoGP.com

Did you realize what mistakes you've done today? (Part 3)

The first step to becoming a better rider is to recognise the mistakes. This is
15 of the most common ones and how you can avoid them.

MISTAKE: FAILING TO MAKE THE MOST OF THE CLUES IN YOUR VIEW THE best riders are those who use every clue they can to see where the road is going.

That gives them time to react to the ever-changing view without fear of the unknown chiming i to slow their ride.

Others ride like a man walking down the street but staring at his feet. Before too long they are going to bump into something. You tend to end up going where you are looking.

The big advantage a bike has on the road is that it can be moved from side to side to improve your view. Unless the surface or other hazards dictate otherwise, always ride on the part of the road that gives you the greatest view ahead.

The vanishing point (the point at which the road disappears from view) now becomes a useful go-faster tool. If that point is coming closer to you then you should slow down or at least keep the throttle constant, as this shows the bend is tightening. If it is getting farther away from you, the corner is opening out and you should start powering out.

Police riders have to do a commentary on their ride during tests, describing every hazard they see, where the road ahead is going and what the surfaces are like. Try doing a commentary to yourself next time you ride. Keep it up and you'll learn to make use of the things you are seeing
to tell you when and where you can pile on the power. You'll end up cracking on smoother than ever.

MotoGP Championship 2007 in Misano, San Marino, Italy

Casey Stoner, Ducati Team during the press conference

This time, the race was held in San Marino, Italy. During the practice session that happened on last Friday, it was raining, heavily. The pits were flooded with water. In qualifying session, on Saturday, Stoner managed to get pole position while Valentino Rossi in second place and Nicky Hayden in third.

During the race on Sunday, Rossi's Yamaha suffered engine problems and made him retired at laps 23. Stoner won the race with Vermeulen in second and Hopkins in third. These are the qualifying and race results:

Rossi: We have two choices.


Sunday, 2nd September 2007

Valentino Rossi's hopes of a glorious Misano homecoming ended after just five laps when a problem with his new Yamaha engine forced the Italian to retire - and all but sunk his world title hopes.


Rossi, who grew up almost within sight of the Misano circuit, began the San Marino Grand Prix from second on the grid - and with thousands of passionate fans begging him to finally turn the tables on pole sitter, and world championship leader, Casey Stoner.

The Doctor dropped one place at the start and another a few turns later, as John Hopkins and then Suzuki team-mate Chris Vermeulen forced their way through, but never got the chance to retaliate as he lost power and was forced to coast to the pits.

"At the start I felt I was lacking some temperature in my tyres and so I slipped back a little from my starting position. However apart from this I felt quite good, stable, with a good rhythm and confident that things would continue to improve as the temperature in my tyres increased," said Rossi. "However on lap five, when I was braking hard, I suddenly felt something go and that was the end of my race. The engine was the same one that I used at the Brno test and also here in practice and it felt quite good; we don't yet know what the problem was today so we will have to wait until our engineers have had time to examine the situation."

With Stoner winning his eighth race of the season, Rossi has now slipped 85 points behind the Ducati star with just five races, and 125 points, still to be decided.

"It would have been great, and very useful, to have a good result here in Misano today," Valentino reflected. "I like the track a lot and I really wanted to do well in front of all the fans; it was a great emotion for me to see so many people in yellow ( we will never give you up Vale!). Unfortunately this wasn't the case today and now we know that the championship will be very, very difficult. Breaking down after just a few laps is frustrating and unlucky, especially because today we had good expectations and we had been fast during practice."

Nevertheless, Rossi insists there will be no surrender:

"When bad things like this happen you have only two choices; give up or come straight back and start working again even harder than before. This is what we will do at Yamaha; me, my team, the engineers - everyone involved." he declared, before hinting that his target has shifted from the championship to individual races. "We still have five races left and we will keep trying to get the result we deserve. Once again Stoner deserved to win today, so well done to him. We have a lot of work to do before Estoril."

Misano marked the first time that Rossi had used the new Yamaha engine, featuring pneumatic valves, in a race - but team director Davide Brivio was keen to stress that it might not have been the 'new technology' that caused Rossi's downfall.

"We used the new engine today and unfortunately something went wrong. We don't know yet exactly what, we won't be able to tell until our engineers have had a lot more time to look at it," said Brivio. "It might not have been anything to do with the new technology, we need to check but this can happen and this is racing. It's just very disappointing for everyone and especially all the thousands of fans who came today to cheer Valentino on."

Meanwhile, Rossi's team-mate Colin Edwards struggled with rear grip in the later stages and was only able to bring his YZR-M1 home in his starting position of ninth.

" I got a good start and managed to miss the big melee with Hayden and de Puniet. Then Checa almost took me out a couple of times and the second time I had to run wide and West and a couple of others came through," said the Texan. "Once I'd got sorted again I had my work cut out getting back by West, but then I just got my head down and got going. Unfortunately however, the left-hand side of my tyre then started to give me trouble and I had no grip from then on. There are a lot of quick changes of direction here, turns one-two and four-five for example, and every time I had to flick it left it felt pretty scary. I had to adjust my pace accordingly and from there on in it was just survival and looking to salvage what points I could. It wasn't fun out there today to be honest."

Fiat Yamaha will stay for a one-day test at Misano on Monday.

source MotoGP.com

Malaysia's 50 Years of Independence Celebration

31st August is our independence day.

I finished my class earlier at 1pm on last Thursday, since, I got flu right after my Electrical Machine 2 lab. So, I went to the clinic to meet the doctor. I fell asleep for a moment right after I took my medicine.

Then, after I woke up, I packed up my things and head on to Kuala Lumpur, about 240 kilometres from my campus at about 6 pm. After the Tapah's rest area, it's raining, heavily until Behrang. But, thank God, when I reached KL, it's already dry and again, thank God, I received a 'love' letter from the traffic police because of using the toll gate as my exit. Surprisingly, I received it without any arguments because I felt really tired and cold.

Before I'm going to meet my friends to celebrate our 50 years of independence, I went back home to meet my parents.

To make the story shorter, we all gathered at Hartamas at about 11 pm. The atmosphere was really nice. Almost 20 of us turned up on that night. The funny thing happened on that night was, the people in Hartamas celebrate about 2 minutes earlier than the people in Dataran Merdeka. Haha. We all really had a good time. Zul Champ came with his girlfriend on his 'kapchai' since his RS250 only got 1 seat (motor racing la katakan, huhu). These are the pictures I took that night:

Ard posing

Bob

Farid and Radi

Yon (red T-shirt), a friend and Ali (the one with the phone)

We celebrate it at the Don

Shahril's friend with Ali

The bikes

Then, we headed to Putrajaya to enjoy the scenaries. Some rempits and a police's patrol car try to impress us with their exceptional skills. Haha.

Sorry Radi, I'm testing the camera, huhu

'Almost' candid shot

We all really enjoy that night. I would like to thank you for those who turned up and sorry for not mentioning all of the names. For those who cannot come, we're sorry because of our 'last-minute decision'. But still, we all can gather again next time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALAYSIA!