Gibernau flown for surgery after crash

Sete Gibernau has been flown to Barcelona for surgery after fracturing his collarbone in two places in a practice crash at Le Mans this morning.

The Spaniard suffered a violent high-side during the wet part of the morning practice session.

The injury is the third that Gibernau has suffered to his collarbone, and lingering discomfort from the old injuries in the area had already forced him to miss some of pre-season testing.

MotoGP medic Dr Claudio Costa expects Gibernau to miss the next race at Mugello, but to be fit for his next home event at Barcelona.

"Gibernau crashed and suffered a double fracture on the left clavicle," Dr Costa told Italia1 television.

"In fact it's a double re-fracture, since Sete's left clavicle has fractured many times in his life and has been operated on as many times.

"He will now be treated in Spain, and his strength will probably allow him to race in Barcelona."

Gibernau had returned to MotoGP for 2009 with the new Francisco Hernando Ducati team, having been away from the sport for two years. He has struggled to get up to speed so far and has yet to finish in the top ten since rejoining the field.

Capirossi pins hopes on new engine

Loris Capirossi thinks Suzuki's hopes of taking a step forward now depend on how soon it can introduce a new engine.

The team's lack of straightline speed became apparent in winter testing, and a revised engine is on the horizon - although it will not arrive as soon as Capirossi had hoped.

"I've put a lot of pressure to try to have it for Mugello, but I think it will be almost impossible," he told Italia1 television. "We'll probably have it in Barcelona, and we'll try to improve our position.

"I'm confident, and I'm doing my maximum. In the hard times you need to put the effort in and that's what I'm doing."

Capirossi qualified eighth at Le Mans today, and again rued the lack of track time following two partially wet practice sessions.

"We are struggling a bit, we aren't yet able to overcome these difficulties, we need more time," he said.

"Unfortunately the weather conditions never help us. Today's qualifying session was overall good. We worked hard and did a few set-ups, so I must say I'm fairly well sorted.

"I have a problem most of all in T4 where I'm slow and we must understand why. Then we'll see for the race. As pace is concerned we aren't completely bad, but we are seven tenths behind pole, so we'll see what happens tomorrow."

Pedrosa delighted to recover to third

Dani Pedrosa said he was relieved to make it back onto the podium in the French Grand Prix having lost a lot of ground in the wet part of the race.

The Honda rider had taken pole position, but was shuffled back to fifth early on as others fared better on the damp track.

He then made a premature switch to his dry tyre shod bike, and although he managed to avoid the error that saw fellow early pit visitor Valentino Rossi finish last after a crash, he was a fourth by the time the pitstops were completed.

However once up to speed on the dry track, Pedrosa was able to hunt down his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso for third, passing the Italian on the final lap.

"It's a fantastic podium for me because in the wet I wasn't too fast," Pedrosa admitted. "I was going backwards. Then I decided to stop, but this was too early. I stopped the same time as Rossi, and I saw him crash in front of me.

"I couldn't really see where it was dry or wet. So on the first lap with slick tyres I was very slow. I think it was 1m55s or something. I lost a lot of seconds there.

"But after that I started to be fast and to get more confident, and got faster and faster. On the final lap I was on the limit and I got a podium, so I'm happy."

With Rossi failing to score following his crash and Casey Stoner only managing a distant fifth, Pedrosa's third podium of the season has brought him into the thick of the championship battle. Although he is fourth in the standings, he is within eight points of new series leader Jorge Lorenzo.

Toseland frustrated by set-up problems

James Toseland endured a frustrating qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix, ending up a disappointing 14th on the grid for the race at Jerez.

The Tech 3 Yamaha rider said he could not find a suitable balance on his bike and admitted that any time he adjusted his machine to improve the braking stability, acceleration was sacrificed.

"It has been a frustrating day," said Toseland. "We have been working a lot on the bike and when we cure one problem we create another.

"That session was almost more like a test than a qualifying session and it is frustrating because I feel like I can definitely run the pace around the top six."

Toseland is hopeful of improvement in Sunday's race because his Yamaha, like that of works rider Valentino Rossi, has handled better on the harder race rubber than on the softer qualifying Bridgestone tyre.

"My pace wasn't too bad on the hard compound race tyre, so if I can get a good start and get away with the pack in front, I'm sure I can have a good race and be in there fighting," he added.

His team-mate Colin Edwards was equally disappointed, despite putting his bike seventh on the grid.

"I was really happy with the bike this morning because I could run a fast and consistent pace that only the top three could better," he said.

"But then we changed a couple of things for qualifying and just went in the wrong direction, so that probably cost me a place on the second row.

"I even kept tucking the front [tyre], which hasn't happened to me once since we switched to the Bridgestones in the winter. We'll just revert back to the old set-up for the race. I'm quite confident."

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Simon takes home 125cc pole

Julian Simon beat his Aspar Aprilia team-mate Bradley Smith to pole position for the Spanish 125cc Grand Prix at Jerez.

Pre-season title favourite Simon came from behind to outpace Smith by 0.197 seconds, with championship leader Andrea Iannone third on his Ongetta Aprilia having battled for pole with the Aspar duo.

Spanish rider Simon, who has stepped back from 250cc to 125cc this year, had dominated winter testing and took pole for the season opener in Qatar, but it is Iannone who has taken both race wins so far in 2009.

Marc Marquez completes the front row on the leading Red Bull KTM, having achieved his best ever qualifying result on home ground.

Sergio Gadea ensured that all three Aspar bikes were in the top five by beating Dominic Aegerter (Ajo Derbi), Scott Redding (Blusens Aprilia) and Danny Webb (Degraaf Aprilia) to fifth place.

Pos Rider Bike Time Gap 1. Julian Simon Aprilia 1m48.237s 2. Bradley Smith Aprilia 1m48.434s + 0.197 3. Andrea Iannone Aprilia 1m48.519s + 0.282 4. Marc Marquez KTM 1m48.931s + 0.694 5. Sergio Gadea Aprilia 1m48.955s + 0.718 6. Dominique Aegerter Derbi 1m49.237s + 1.000 7. Scott Redding Aprilia 1m49.310s + 1.073 8. Daniel Webb Aprilia 1m49.353s + 1.116 9. Sandro Cortese Derbi 1m49.362s + 1.125 10. Pol Espargaro Derbi 1m49.400s + 1.163 11. Joan Olive Derbi 1m49.806s + 1.569 12. Simone Corsi Aprilia 1m49.954s + 1.717 13. Randy Krummenacher Aprilia 1m49.968s + 1.731 14. Stefan Bradl Aprilia 1m50.167s + 1.930 15. Efren Vazquez Derbi 1m50.196s + 1.959 16. Esteve Rabat Aprilia 1m50.249s + 2.012 17. Cameron Beaubier KTM 1m50.256s + 2.019 18. Nicolas Terol Aprilia 1m50.342s + 2.105 19. Johann Zarco Aprilia 1m50.453s + 2.216 20. Tomoyoshi Koyama Loncin 1m50.564s + 2.327 21. Takaaki Nakagami Aprilia 1m50.781s + 2.544 22. Lorenzo Savadori Aprilia 1m51.098s + 2.861 23. Lukas Sembera Aprilia 1m51.542s + 3.305 24. Jasper Iwema Honda 1m51.605s + 3.368 25. Alberto Moncayo Aprilia 1m51.945s + 3.708 26. Lorenzo Zanetti Aprilia 1m52.050s + 3.813 27. Alexis Masbou Loncin 1m52.850s + 4.613 28. Luca Marconi Aprilia 1m53.002s + 4.765 29. Luis Salom Honda 1m53.186s + 4.949 30. Borja Maestro Aprilia 1m54.170s + 5.933 31. Luca Vitali Aprilia 1m54.642s + 6.405 32. Michael Ranseder Haojue 1m54.765s + 6.528 33. Eduard Lopez Aprilia 1m55.900s + 7.663 34. Matthew Hoyle Haojue 1m56.300s + 8.063 35. Jordi Dalmau Honda 1m57.298s + 9.061 36. Jonas Folger Aprilia 1m57.508s + 9.271

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Q and A with Bradley Smith

It has been a long time coming, but in his 50th grand prix start, Bradley Smith finally became a 125cc winner at Jerez today.

Afterwards he told AUTOSPORT how much it meant to him - and how it has transformed his world championship hopes.

Q: How do you feel?

Bradley Smith: I can't even explain it at the moment. It's just crazy. You watch these races before in years gone by when people win by 15-20 seconds and you wonder how it's possible. So for me to do it today, to keep on seeing those seconds go up on the pit board, words can't describe it because the bike was working so well and I was just keeping my head down lap after lap.

It was a freaky race really. The wind started to get worse and worse towards the end so I was thankful to have such a big gap. Also the fifth gear problem I had with a couple of laps to go played in as well. I guess it was just meant to be my day today. I'll take that one, thank you very much, and go in into the rest of the season now with my confidence pretty high.

Q: What happened with fifth gear?

BS: I just couldn't use it. It just wasn't working.

Q: And you nearly crashed?

BS: I went into corner number four and the bike almost switched off and then back on, and I went pretty sideways. So I was pretty lucky to stay on. It was a lucky race for me.

Q: So did you have to go from fourth to sixth then?

BS: Yes. Fourth... fifth-sixth... just like that. It wasn't easy.

Q: Have you cracked this business now?

BS: It's not a given. Hopefully the 1/50 ratio will soon dwindle down. That's the plan anyway. It's just one of those races where everything went my way. Right from the start I was able to ride my own lines and my own race. This is a huge confidence booster. I always knew I could do it. It was just a question of actually getting over the line first, and always something seemed to be in my way. Now I've done it and I couldn't be happier.

Q: It's an amazing transformation from two weeks ago?

BS: The thing is there were three dry days, and when you have that at a circuit where you've done so many laps in testing, you can be on it from the word go. We went under the lap record today so the pace me and my team-mate were able to set at the beginning was very fast. If it hadn't been for the problem with the bike I think it would have continued right to the end.

I think the extra 20 minutes in the session at Le Mans will help us a lot in terms of set-up time and more time on the bike. It was all good and I had no problems at all until the final seven laps of that race. I just thought 'please, not today.' And we got the job done.

Q: Is the title on?

BS: After Japan I was disappointed. It took something quite special to pick me up. To be 26 points behind after only two races, I know it's a long season, but you have a lot of work to do. This just shows you how quickly everything can turn around. I'm only one point behind now and the chase is certainly on.

Q: And the last few laps?

BS: When you've been in the zone for over 40 minutes, the final two laps don't make a difference. You think about every possible scenario you might have anyway. With the problem with the bike I had to concentrate really hard on everything else, so I didn't really have time to think about anything else.

Q: So it probably did you a favour then?

BS: In some ways, yes. In others, not at all.

Q: Will you have a different attitude now?

BS: No. Because I've been searching for, and fighting for this victory for the last year now, and the will and the desire was always there, it was just a case of doing it. So now it's not a case of chasing the victory, it's a case of chasing the second one.

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FIM confident Donington will be ready

The FIM has assured the MotoGP riders that Donington Park will be fully restored to its former safety levels in time for this year's British MotoGP on 26 July.

Recent track modification work in preparation for the 2010 Formula 1 British Grand Prix has compromised the run-off area at McLeans corner, but in a MotoGP Safety Commission meeting at Losail this weekend, the FIM's Claude Denis said that the Leicestershire track would definitely be ready for this year's MotoGP round.

A new tunnel that is being installed under the track after McLeans has reduced the run-off area to such a degree that during a Historic Sports Car Club meeting last weekend yellow flags were permanently shown through McLeans and Coppice, forbidding overtaking in those areas.

The MSA, which issues track licences for all four wheeled motorsport in the UK, will not issue a licence to Donington until the modifications are made, although the circuit remains confident of a solution and is continuing to advertise tickets for the British Formula 3 and GT meeting on 25-26 April.

Donington has also assured the FIM that the track will be returned to its former format in time for July's MotoGP event.

A bike meeting was held two weeks ago with a licence from the ACU but a Donington spokesman was unsure if the licence still stood: "I don't know any more than that (about a track licence). There was a Moto 6 meeting there at the end of March."

The ACU and the MCRCB, which provide licences for bike meetings and gave a temporary licence to the Moto 6 event a fortnight ago, are expected to follow the position of the MSA and FIM on the issue.

Donington boss Simon Gillett has been difficult to contact in recent weeks due to medical problems.

British Superbike organiser MotorSport Vision is wary that the opening round of the BSB championship is only six weeks away. A senior member of MSV looked at Donington this week and reported that "there is a considerable amount of work to do."

Sources within MSV have told AUTOSPORT of their extreme frustration at a lack of communication from Donington Park over the issue, which has caused MSV to cancel the first of its major car racing weekends, originally scheduled for 18-19 April at Donington.

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