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GP Assen, Honda preview

In MotoGP

25 giugno 2009

This weekend the thrilling 2009 MotoGP World Championship goes into action at its most historic event, the Dutch TT at Assen. This year the Assen world round celebrates its sixth decade as a Grand Prix event, indeed it is the only race that survives from the World Championship’s inaugural year in 1949.

Honda has been winning races at Assen since 1961, when Mike Hailwood and Tom Phillis won the 250 and 125 races, two years after Honda first entered World Championship competition. This year the factory’s hopes are in the hands of its fastest riders in the MotoGP and 250 classes – Repsol Honda RC212V riders Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa and Scot Honda RS250RW rider Hiroshi Aoyama.

Dovizioso and Pedrosa currently hold fourth and fifth places in the MotoGP points standings, behind series leaders Valentino Rossi (Yamaha), Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) and Casey Stoner (Ducati) who are all exactly equal on points after six of 17 races.

Dovizioso has been building speed since the start of the season and is knocking on the door of his first podium with the Repsol Honda squad. The 23-year-old Italian has finished fourth at the last three GPs, on each occasion crossing the line tantalisingly close to a third-place finish. At Le Mans he was half a second behind team-mate Pedrosa and at Mugello and Catalunya he was less than a tenth behind Rossi and Stoner. There is no doubt that Dovi is both capable and deserving of a top three at Assen, especially after he topped the post-Catalan GP tests using a modified RC212V chassis.

Pedrosa has had a tougher time in recent weeks. The 23-year-old Spaniard had put himself in the thick of the title battle with three consecutive podium finishes at the Japanese, Spanish and French GPs, only to suffer ill luck at the Italian and Catalan GPs. He crashed out at Mugello and then fell again during Catalunya qualifying, heroically riding through the pain barrier to finish sixth. Pedrosa has been resting his injuries since then and is hopeful he will be strong enough to compete at the front at Assen, where he finished second last year.

Honda’s MotoGP satellite team riders arrive at Assen determined to turn promising progress into better results. Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) has had some good runs lately, reinforcing his place as one of the championship’s top privateers. Eighth at the last two races, the Frenchman is determined to get closer to the front, as he did at Jerez where he finished a storming fourth.

San Carlo Honda Gresini riders Alex De Angelis and Toni Elias continue to work hard at extracting the maximum from their RC212V machines but so far have yet to reap the reward their input deserves. Both men know that they are on the verge of scoring results, they just need another step forward to improve rear grip and a little luck. Things seemed to be looking up for Elias at Catalunya, where he rode brilliantly in qualifying to start from the second row, only to slide off in the race.

Italian squad Scot Honda go into their second GP as a two-rider MotoGP team with rookie Yuki Takahashi and newcomer Gabor Talmacsi assigned one RC212V each. Takahashi has had a couple of tough races, falling at Mugello and at Catalunya, where he cracked a finger in his right hand when he fell on the first lap of the race.

Talmacsi had a baptism of fire at Catalunya, throwing a leg over a MotoGP bike for the very first time in the opening practice session. Initially slightly overawed by the 200-plus horsepower machine, the former 125 World Champion was getting up to speed by the end of the weekend and went even faster during the post-race tests. The diminutive Hungarian made crucial machine adjustments during the tests, like moving his seating position forward. Talma loves Assen – he was winner of the 2005 and 2008 Dutch 125 TTs.

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) says: “I’ve been really looking forward to getting back on the bike since we left Catalunya last week. We had a positive test on the Monday after the Barcelona race and that, combined with the constant improvement we’ve been making race after race, means I’m very confident. So I’m looking forward to getting back in the garage with the team, continuing to work on our machine package and to getting a good result in Assen. I’ve been really close to the podium in the last three rounds and at the same time closing the time gap to the race winner, so I’m determined to get into the top three as soon as possible – hopefully this weekend. Assen is not actually one of my favourite tracks though. Since the layout modifications, the fascination of the circuit has been lost a little, but still I have good memories of last year’s race where I finished fifth after qualifying 11th. It’s a circuit of two sections – the first part is quite slow while the second part is more technically demanding – and the weather can also play its part in the Netherlands too. But whatever happens, I’m looking forward to another strong weekend for me and the team.”

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