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2005-09-13 Repsol Motegi preview: fight for second
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 Max Biaggi and Nicky Hayden will arrive in Japan this weekend for the first of the last six races of the season that will be played out on three continents over eight frantic weeks.The real battle in the championship is the one for second place in the riders standing that sees only 17 points separating six riders between second and seventh place.
Biaggi currently leads this fight after an inspirational ride in Brno three weeks ago that saw the Italian charge through from 11th place after the first lap to a memorable podium. If there was a championship for hard-charging overtakes, Biaggi would surely be well ahead of the pack with a list of determined rides from lowly qualification positions. The 34-year-old will have good memories at the 4.8km track that Honda built in 1997. He won his first 500cc race in 1998 and has had several podium finishes there since and more recently a win in 2003.
Hayden will want to use the final six races of the season to climb from the seventh place he currently holds. The 24-year-old American has only qualified off the front row once in the last four races and is currently the third best qualifier behind Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi after 11 races. He and his team had a positive test at Brno after the last race and will want to put all they learnt to good use in the 24-lap race on Sunday.
The MotoGP circus moves from Japan onto Malaysia then Qatar on consecutive weekends. The championship then reconvenes in Australia on 16th Oct followed by the first GP in Turkey the following weekend. The 2005 championship ends up back in Europe for the traditional end of season carnival at Valencia, Spain on November 6th.
Max Biaggi
After the relative rest of the summer with only one GP since Germany back at the end of July I'm really looking forward to the busy end to the season. The last race was very satisfying in the end with a good podium finish - enough to retake second place in the championship. The race shows to everyone that I always give 100% and I made all the laps with a good consistent lap time that helped me pass so many riders. I qualified OK last year in Motegi but ended the race very early in the big crash on the first corner. This year we need to go well from Friday. We had a good few days test after the last GP in Brno and I don't think we'll be riding the new bike, which needs a further work. I really want to keep the second place in the championship and I want to show all my fans and my team that we can make it. Japan is always a good track for me and it's also a good opportunity to meet all my Japanese fans again.
Nicky Hayden
I'm looking forward to this end part of the season. Lots of races in a short period of time suit me fine and all the tracks I enjoy. Last year the race in Japan ended pretty fast when a whole bunch of us went out at the first corner; in the fact the whole weekend was hard as I was getting over the shoulder and leg injury that caused problems about this time last year. I'm happy to say I'm super fit now so I can concentrate 100% on riding the bike in Japan which for a factory Honda rider is a real honour. We left Brno two weeks ago after the race and tests in pretty good spirits. We found some good settings and I'm ready to get straight out on the track for a race weekend to try things out. We seem to have got the whole qualifying thing pretty well sorted but we're still missing that little something in the race which we need to find to fast as this season is gonna' be over before we know it.
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