Moody Blues: Mugello.

In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Eurosport MotoGP commentator Toby Moody reveals more 'behind the scenes' news from round five of the 2005 world championship; the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello...

Rossi's victory for the sixth time at Mugello was one that he said was not the most emotional. He reckoned that honour went to last year's victory with the Yamaha for the very first time.

Time taken after races such as Jerez, Portugal and Le Mans has made the M1 quicker out of the corners enabling Rossi to crack open the throttle earlier onto straights. This was very apparent at Mugello onto the long home straight.

Rossi even used the 'old' four-cylinder engine as he found this quicker over the weekend...

Ducati team manager Livio Suppo has always had a short cut beard, but had not trimmed it - and was not going to until Ducati had a result this season...

The decision was made after the French Grand Prix three weeks ago, so after the Mugello race the Gillette Mach 3 came out and for the first time in a grand prix paddock we saw him fully shawn in celebration of Capirossi's podium position.

Just as well the result came quickly otherwise it could have been a summer looking like he was going to turn into Old Father Time...

Red Bull are looking for an entry back into the top flight class on a more permanent basis, even trying to sign up Valentino Rossi with either a drinks bottle or cap deal such as Hayden and Hopkins have.

Red Bull's interest in the MotoGP championship has been growing right from the start of the season when boss Dietrich Matesitz flew into Jerez with his personal jet, accompanied by Heinz Kinigartner, and Gerhard Berger.

Red Bull's manager of Motorcycle Sponsorship, Hayes Wheelless, has also been to many races this season and that can only be a positive thing from the 1 billion cans a year company.

Indeed, their relaxed attitude to the norm was very evident at Mugello when they let their current F1 driver Vitantonio Liuzzi ride shotgun on the back of Randy Mamola's two-seater Ducati. Now how many thick F1 driver contracts would allow that?!

Not many, but red Bull and Alpinestars don't wrap up their people with cotton wool and let them get on with it - something for which they should be applauded.

As an F1 driver used to 4.5G decelerations in a 600kg F1 car with downforce and 4 tyres, Liuzzi was overwhelmed with the physics of a prototype MotoGP bike that could brake and drag its braking all the way into the apex of a corner.

"Straight away into the first corner Randy laid the bike in and I was just so impressed how close the ground was to my head. I almost felt like it was going to touch the crash helmet!" he said even hours after the event.

Miss Italy 2004 and current GP2 driver Nelson Piquet Jnr also had rides on the Ducati two-seater on Sunday morning.

Bridgestone should be suitable happy with their third position as it was 55 seconds quicker than Tamada's race time here in 2003. Let us remember that last year was only a 6 lap dash for the flag after rain.

Michelin with Rossi, winning 2003 and this year, managed to trim 46 seconds of their race winning time. Progress...

KTM Team Roberts had the fruits of a three week lull in racing to work hard and get a result after the disaster that was Le Mans when four of the new spec engines failed. Much Austrian dyno work later, and important re-jigging of manufacturing tolerances gave the mechanics an easier weekend at Mugello and a race finish for Shakey Byrne.

Indeed for Byrne to finish only 2.3 seconds back of Kenny Roberts Jnr's Suzuki was a result in itself. The differences of racing budgets between Suzuki and Team Roberts does not bear thinking about!

3000 people filled the Ducati grandstand at the Correntiao corner on raceday. With tickets bought through the Ducati website, everyone enjoyed themselves. With a massive sound system installed around and underneath the two grandstands, the Star Wars theme tune was played regularly in advance of each MotoGP session.

Yamaha Italy filled their own stand on the other side of the track, positioned not far away from the Rossi Fan Club pitch.

Rossi's usage of the teacher's mortar board after the race was after his award of an Honorary degree in Communications and Publicity from Urbino University, near to his home town of Tuvullia. This was the first time an Italian has been given this kind of degree without actually having taken the course...

The Italian Grand Prix was the Italian domination. The top four riders were Italian, the first time that such a result has happened since Monza 1968.

Marco Melandri said that it was his best race of the season even though he was off the podium that he had visited twice before in 2005. He said he could hear the crowd cheering as he battled with Capirossi in the closing laps.

For those going to the Donington Park MotoGP race, beware that the start time of the races are late in the day to avoid a clash with the German F1 race on the same day. The same goes for the German MotoGP the week after, July 31 that clashes with the Hungarian F1 race.

It will be interesting to see what TV figures, race attendances are like in the first major clash - indeed two on the bounce - between F1 and MotoGP with races in the same time zone. Will people watch TV all day during the height of the summer holidays?

More importantly, now that MotoGP has got Michael Schumacher domination from Valentino Rossi that saw most wanting Biaggi to win the Mugello race if only for a break, will TV viewers continue to tune in when Rossi wraps up the title in Brno or Japan?

He needs a 125 point lead leaving Japan, and he has 49 of those points already. It all makes Mick Doohan's domination in the mid 90s look tame.


French journalists were left confused on Friday morning when Alex Hofmann took to the second Kawasaki. They had received a release from Olivier Jacque earlier in the week saying he was going to race, but in the end the Frenchman seemed not over bothered about watching from the sideline at a track with such distractions as Mugello.

Dressed in Team uniform he watched trackside and assisted the squad all he could, as Hoffers got the coffers going back into his bank account.

Former Aprilia engineer Jan Witeveen was at Mugello. "I am happy to have had 6 months off doing absolutely nothing at all," said the tall Dutchman. He has however been busy working towards getting youngsters into football and away from "...their TV games the lure of alcohol and drugs."

Movistar Honda riders Gibernau and Melandri welcomed back Michelin engineer Jean Valton who fell ill after the Estoril race, forcing him to miss China and Le Mans, but returned even after two nasty spells in hospital.

Britain's Chaz Davis as good as won the 250 race with a 10th place in a field full of 12 works bikes. His leathers were covered in tyre marks such was the severity of battle. Read Chaz's report soon here on Crash.net.

Mika Kallio was up and about after his heavy last corner crash in the 125 race. He opted to go for a line out of the final corner that squared it off in order to get the power on earlier towards the line as he knew he couldn't keep Faubel behind any other way.

The trouble was with his last corner line was that he was a few metres off the normal line and hence no grip that highsided him into the gravel. Faubel hit him swelling his ankle up like a balloon. Faubel had a bang on the head but should be OK for Catalunya.

BMW cleared away their 70 ton Power Cup support race village in record time after their race on Saturday afternoon. Working through the night and finishing with typical efficiency before the deadline of 6am Sunday, they were off the plot in order to make way for buses to park on raceday.

Alas, management were suitably annoyed when the large tarmac space was not filled by anything for the second year in a row, leaving a few very worn out logistic guys wondering why they were asked to vacate so quickly.

The second BMW Power Cup 2005 race was won by Spaniard Sergio Fuertes on Saturday afternoon even with the loss of his clutch mid race. With blisters on his fingers he managed to make it all stick to the flag ahead of local Roberto Panichi and podium debutant Arturo Tizon from Spain. Jurgen Fuchs started from pole.


And finally...

'Team' Eurosport filled the first two places on Thursday evening at Mugello during a Ducati run Rodeo competition. Italian commentator for the channel Roberto Ungaro ran out the victor, while yours truly couldn't quite hold on long enough to topple the local commentator. Maybe a balti eating competition at Donington will give me a chance to level the scores Roberto!