turkish grand prix istanbul park

Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul Park

Race Day, Sunday April 30 2006

DIFFICULT DAY FOR DUCATI MEN

Ducati Team riders Loris Capirossi and Sete Gibernau endured a

challenging race at Istanbul Park this afternoon, finishing sixth

and 11th. The result was much less than the team had expected

after some promising performances in practice and qualifying.

Gibernau had particularly high hopes after placing third in

yesterday's wet qualifier and leading this morning's dry warm-up.

And he looked in superb form in the early stages of the race,

leading from the first turn until the end of lap 11, when tyre

concerns began to push him down the order.

Capirossi, who went into the race leading the World Championship,

also had every reason to expect another fine result after

qualifying fourth and placing third in morning warm-up. He battled

hard throughout, ending the first lap in seventh, then slipping to

eighth before fighting back to sixth on the final lap. Capirossi

goes into round four in China in two weeks holding second overall,

just one point behind Nicky Hayden. The race, run in cool but dry

conditions was won by Italian Marco Melandri

LORIS CAPIROSSI, finished 6th, 2nd in World Championship

"I can't say I'm happy with sixth, that's not where we should be.

This weekend we were pretty good in the wet but we didn't have

enough time to prepare for a dry race, so it didn't go as we had

expected. Anyway, we are just one point off the World Championship

lead and we scored some useful points for what is a very long and

difficult championship. We did well to take home what we could,

plus we were also the first Bridgestone team at the finish. We

knew this track might be difficult, so we came here with many

tyres but we preferred not to risk new tyres for the race,

choosing what we thought would be best. Now we go to China, which

will be another difficult track, so we will keep working like

crazy. We started the season in the best way and now we have to

maintain that focus and keep doing our best."

SETE GIBERNAU, finished 11th, 10th in World Championship

"There's not much to say really apart from that we had a rear-tyre

problem. I couldn't do anything about it. The bike was working

okay and I was feeling comfortable in the lead, but from lap four

I started to feel some vibration from the rear. I was thinking

about coming into the pits to change the tyre but I decided to

keep going. It's a pity, I was feeling confident."

LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project manager

"That wasn't a great day for us. For sure, we got much less than

we expected after practice and morning warm-up. We certainly

suffered from having no dry track time yesterday because we

couldn't do any long runs with race tyres, but that was the same

for everyone, of course. We knew that we had to keep our feet on

the ground after our great results at Jerez and Qatar and we knew

this would be a difficult track for us. We must keep our positive

attitude, and at least it was great to see Sete lead for ten laps