MotoGP preview Australian Grand Prix, Phillip Island, round 16 of 18 October 3/4/5 2008 Repsol Honda RC212V riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden are ready for one of the biggest challenges of the MotoGP season the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island. The Victorian track is the fastest of them all, with the quickest lap times nudging 180km/h (112mph). Pedrosa comes into this race fresh from his third-place finish in last Sunday’s Japanese GP, his first podium with his pneumatic-valve RC212V and Bridgestone tyres. Pedrosa has tasted success at Phillip Island he won the 2005 250 GP at the track and finished fourth in last year’s MotoGP race. Hayden is a huge fan of the seaside venue, he has scored two pole positions and two podium finishes there. Phillip Island is an old-school circuit characterised by fast, sweeping turns which require bravery, commitment and a fast, stable motorcycle. The high-speed layout also tends to produce close races, with the sweeping corners allowing a variety of racing lines and the ultra-quick start-finish straight encouraging slipstreaming. The track hosted its first races during the inter-war years, when machinery was brought over from the mainland in boats! It hosted Australia’s first motorcycle Grand Prix in 1989 when local hero Wayne Gardner won a thrilling battle for victory aboard his Honda NSR500. Honda has an impressive record at the track, with Mick Doohan, Alex Crivillé, Tadayuki Okada, Valentino Rossi and Marco Melandri also scoring premier-class Island successes aboard Honda machinery. Dani Pedrosa, currently third overall “At Motegi I was getting a good feeling from my bike and tyres, and I’m sure my feeling will continue to improve at Phillip Island as we continue to learn more about our new technical package. The big question mark for this race is the weather it can be quite tough if the weather isn’t good. Phillip Island is fast, the asphalt is a little old, a bit bumpy in a few places and the grip is not so great. To go fast it is important to start the lap well and keep it flowing, although you still need an aggressive riding style to go fast here. There are a lot of wide and open left-handers through which you use a lot of throttle, so the rear tyre needs to be quite hard on the left side. The track is tough on tyres even when the weather is cold. From a machine set-up point of view, you need a stable bike because there are so many high-speed sections. My favourite part of the track is the final section, it’s very impressive. The circuit is also good for fans, if the weather is okay, and it’s easy to see that the Australians are big fans of motorcycles and motorcycle racing.” Nicky Hayden, currently eighth overall “I love Phillip Island. I don’t think there’s a better racetrack in the world, but I wish we could race there when the weather’s a little bit better sometimes it can be more like Phillip Iceland than Phillip Island. A lot of tracks they keep slowing them down, adding chicanes for safety, but this one you can really turn it on. There’s some real fast stuff, so it’s a track where you can get in a rhythm when the bike’s working and go fast, and when the bike’s not working you can be pretty slow. You spend a lot of time on the edge of the tyres, so it’s probably the hardest track in the world for tyres, so we’ll work with my Michelin guys to get the best tyres for the race. I’ve had some good results there: a couple of pole positions, a second and a third, but I’ve never won one there. You need a bike set-up that saves the tyres, plus you need to be able to steer through the long corners and change direction too. It’s easy to lower the rear and soften things up to get traction, but then you lose the steering.”