Fuente: © Yamaha Racing
http://www.yamaha-racing.com/

YAMAHA: MX2: Yamaha claims final top three in MX2

/noticias.info/ Round: 17 - Grand Prix of Ireland
Circuit: Desert Martin
Date: 17 September 2005
Crowd: 8000
Temp: 15°C
Weather: Changeable

Ricci Racing team mates Andrew McFarlane and Alessio Chiodi confirmed the top three finish for Yamaha in the MX2 Motocross World Championship this afternoon when they captured respectively seventh and fourth place overall at Desert Martin for the final round of the 2005 FIM series.

Australia’s McFarlane secured his MX2 runner up title, battling to seventh and eleventh positions on a very rough and technical sandy terrain in Northern Ireland. After three DNFs in the last four motos McFarlane posted enough points on the board to beat team-mate Alessio Chiodi for the second overall position in the Championship before announcing his departure to ride for the American Yamaha of Troy team in 2006.


Triple World Champion Chiodi was Yamaha's highest placed representative in a Grand Prix that was dominated by KTM riders (Tyla Rattray taking his third consecutive success and flanked by Marc de Reuver and Aigar Leok on the podium). The Italian was fourth overall after using his experience on the difficult terrain to score eleventh and sixth in the two motos and weathering a frantic mix of position changes as his peers made mistakes, fell and retaliated.

Newly crowned MX2 World Champion Antonio Cairoli was riding with a cracked scaphoid in his left wrist and took a brave 5th position in the first moto after a race-long duel with countryman David Philippaerts (KTM). The teenager has not been able to ride since securing the title in Holland two weeks ago but still managed to hold Aigar Leok at bay for second position in moto 2 until being forced to pit with a damaged gear lever that dropped him down the order to 19th. Before this race it was announced that world champion Cairoli will be joined by the promising Matteo Bonini (born 20/09/1985) in the 2006 line up of Team Yamaha De Carli.

Yamaha UK Racing Team’s Billy Mackenzie confirmed sixth position in the World Championship with sixth place overall in front of a crowd of nearly 8,000 spectators.

It has been a landmark season for Yamaha in the MX2 class with the manufacturer's crown complimenting their first rider's World Championship of the new millennium. The YZ250F has proved to be the superior machine in the category by claiming 11 from 17 Grand Prix and 21 motos from 34 in the hands of five different riders.

Antonio Cairoli (Team Yamaha De Carli) - tenth overall
"This GP was not good for me because I have a big problem with my wrist, and because I have not been training for two weeks it is hard on this terrain because there are many bumps. I started OK in the first heat but felt tired after a little while. I lost a lot of time with Philippearts, and Rattray and de Reuver had escaped. In the second race I was first and for twenty minutes I was OK. I was riding well but had no energy and my hand was hurting. I came together with one rider and I bent the gear lever so I needed to stop in the pit to get it fixed. The moto was good for training in preparation for the Nations."


Andrew McFarlane (Ricci Racing) - seventh overall
"It is my last GP and I wanted to finish on a good note because I will go to America next year. We had problems in the last three or four GPs and overall it was not acceptable. I am disappointed that we had to fight all weekend for me to finish the race and second in the World Championship. I wanted to be fighting for the title to the end. Second place is not too bad however and now I am looking to the new challenge."

Alessio Chiodi (Ricci Racing) - fourth overall
"Fourth is not so bad. It has been a long season and I have felt quite tired in the last two GPs. Finally I have taken third overall and that is better than last year. Today I did not enjoy the races. The track was nice but it was difficult to keep a good rhythm. In some parts I was riding very tight and I did not take the risk of losing any points."

The unfortunate Cédric Melotte (Yamaha L&M Motocross Team) saw his 2005 MX2 campaign come to an abrupt end after braking the radius on his left hand in Gaildorf. Melotte had already been struggling for most of the season with his left hand after injuring the wrist during the Portuguese GP early on. In order to prepare for 2006, when he will return to the MX1 class with the Yamaha factory Motocross Team, Cédric underwent surgery on Friday. The objective of the operation was to reconstruct the broken ligaments in his wrist. The likeable Belgian said afterwards: “Everything went fine, they put in a plate and screws to let everything heal properly. This plate will be replaced by another one later, but in the meantime I will try to maintain my fitness as much as possible and the goal is to be back on the bike by mid-December when the second plate has been removed.”
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