Tohru Ukawa @ Motegi!

ASCII Man · 9 Sep 2004, 21:29 (Ref:1091317)

Yep, Tohru Ukawa has been comfirmed as a wildcard for the Motegi Grand Prix!
Not big news i might hear you think, but there's the small fact that he will be driving the 2005 prototype of the RCV211V purely to stop Rossi and Yamaha from embarassing Honda at one of their home GP's!

The reasons don't matter much to me, i'm just glad one of my favourite drivers, my favourite is and always will be Crivillé ofcourse

, will race again!

**gomick** · 10 Sep 2004, 09:10 (Ref:1091700)

i presume tohru has been testing the bike for a fair while, hence he should be quick

- valentino will still embarrass him though

when did yamaha last win in japan in the premier class

N I Tram · 10 Sep 2004, 14:44 (Ref:1092038)

If Rossi beats everyone except Ukawa, he's still increased his lead on both Seté and Max. Surely Honda are better to be quicker in giving the latest hardware to their other teams, rather than resorting to cheap publicity stunts like this? Yamaha and Rossi have done extremely well, but Honda's obsession with prioritising Repsol have made it easier for them.

x_dt · 13 Sep 2004, 19:13 (Ref:1095542)

Quote:

Originally posted by gomick
when did yamaha last win in japan in the premier class

Norick Abe has won twice at Suzuka in the last 10 years or so.

It'll be interesting to see how Ukawa does. OJ on the Moriwaki as well.

As we'd expect theres a strong looking lineup of wildcards lined up for Motegi across the classes - including Shuhei Aoyama (brother of Hiroshi??) and wildcard 'regular' Yuki Takahashi in the 250s (will we see him as a W/C regular in the near future?)
http://www.crash.net/uk/en/news_view...id=6&nid=99051

marcus · 14 Sep 2004, 08:42 (Ref:1096023)

I always liked Ukawa thought he was great , I hope he does really well

now all i need is Shinichi Itoh back and i will be laughing

N I Tram · 14 Sep 2004, 13:35 (Ref:1096333)

Ukawa lost out badly to Rossi, but who didn't? I think he can still cut it pretty well, and it'll be useful for Honda to get an idea of how good next year's bike is (only trouble is that it will give the other teams a clue as to how much work they have to do).

TWIGLET · 15 Sep 2004, 07:46 (Ref:1097004)

Apart from testing out the new bike, Tohru has nothing to prove so no real presssure. He's proved himself already to be an excellent rider over the last ......? years. Hope he does really well. It would be nice to see him give Rossi a bit of a fight.

chunder · 15 Sep 2004, 21:29 (Ref:1097675)

Does anyone know if the Ukawa\ bike is on Michelins or Bridgestones, coz my feeling is that the Repsol team might make the swirch next year, it is obvious that they are getting better, just missing a good team to really exploit their advantage

f1manoz · 15 Sep 2004, 22:42 (Ref:1097729)

Not expecting much from Ukawa as it's just a 'race test'. I'm interested to see how the new bike: a. looks and b. performs. It's obvious Honda are VERY unhappy at getting beaten by Yamaha, but would be even unhappier that it's Rossi on the bike.

**gomick** · 17 Sep 2004, 23:37 (Ref:1099834)

Quote:

Originally posted by marcus
now all i need is Shinichi Itoh back and i will be laughing

you will be happy to know marcus that shinichi itoh won the latest round of the all japan superbike championship at sugo on sep 5

points after 5 of 7 rounds

1 Hitoyasu Izutsu 80
2 Tatsuya Yamaguchi 76
3 Akira Yanagawa 56
4 Shin'ichi Nakatomi 53
5 Yo****eru Konishi 41
6 Shin'ichi Itoh 40

7 Atushi Watanabe 39
8 Akira Tamitsuji 31
9 Toshiyuki Hamaguchi 30
10 Shogo Moriwaki 30

BootsOntheSide · 18 Sep 2004, 21:03 (Ref:1100382)

The bike doesn't look competitive right now, but it's at a very early stage of devleopment, and they might be running it detuned, for a)reliability and b)sandbagging purposes.

As for the Japanese series, I take it the guy at #5 is called Yoshi Teru? Poor guy.

Do you think we'll see any of these guys on the world stage any time soon?

**gomick** · 19 Sep 2004, 00:13 (Ref:1100487)

dont think so, a few of them are older & have had a crack on the world scene, while others have won and stayed in japan.... think japans next stars will come from 125/250 classes

Winther · 19 Sep 2004, 09:08 (Ref:1100676)

Well he crashed, so it did go nowhere!

Hazza · 20 Sep 2004, 00:45 (Ref:1101522)

But he still managed 310 down the straights - 4 more than anyone else...that compared to a Yam would be like the Dukes last year.

Winther · 20 Sep 2004, 08:12 (Ref:1101677)

310 down the straight is not going to make you win races

racer69 · 20 Sep 2004, 11:25 (Ref:1101853)

Quote:

Originally posted by gomick
you will be happy to know marcus that shinichi itoh won the latest round of the all japan superbike championship at sugo on sep 5

points after 5 of 7 rounds

1 Hitoyasu Izutsu 80
2 Tatsuya Yamaguchi 76
3 Akira Yanagawa 56
4 Shin'ichi Nakatomi 53
5 Yo****eru Konishi 41
6 Shin'ichi Itoh 40
7 Atushi Watanabe 39
8 Akira Tamitsuji 31
9 Toshiyuki Hamaguchi 30
10 Shogo Moriwaki 30

What rules is the All-Japan Superbike series running to nowadays?

Are they still letting MotoGP bikes race for no points, like they were in 2002?

**gomick** · 21 Sep 2004, 07:48 (Ref:1102656)

no moto gp bikes, all 1000cc superbikes

- i think there may even be 1 ducati running around too

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