Last lap Last chance

I love beating my opponents on the last lap.

It's the most exciting way to win a race.

It was the dying moments of an open shoot-out which began with eight riders and was now down to two. The two of us. Me and Max Biaggi.

The final reckoning of the 2001 championship. Last lap. Last tough spot. Last point of attack. Last chance.....for me.

The turn is on a stretch of asphalt spread like butter over a shallow, green hill..... When you go in to the corner, you can't see what's on the other side. You have to ride from memory. You have no idea when you can brake, you only began to understand when you're on the other side and if you haven't picked the right spot, it's too late, there's nothing you can do about it.

I planned an outside trajectory, so that I could be on his right in the brief downhill stretch and then on the inside on the following turn. There is only one way to get through that turn, in first gear, after downshifting from forth.

If you are first coming out of there, it's over, you've won. I was taking a huge risk of course, I was. But I had to. It was the only way to get ahead of him when it came to brake.

And that was how I won the 2001 Australian GP.
I became the new 500cc World Champion.


Three years later, Sete Gibernau and I found ourselves in the exact same spot on the same track. He was expecting me to attact him, just as I had attacked Biaggi. He knew what was coming - it was the last lap and I had already tried to attack him a few turns earlier, but then I had made a crucial mistake and had allowed Gibernau to regain the lead.

This time, I decided to go inside, at the entrance of the uphill turn, so that I'd be ahead just as we went downhill. I want to seal the victory early, before the long downhill stretch, so I went for it, just as we came into the long turn and the elevation changed.

"I did it!" I thought to myself. But my elation lasted a mere instant. It was a false down. Gibernau came off his brakes and closed my path, and we reached the top of the hill together, with his Honda nudging the front wheel of my Yamaha. But then, suddenly, I saw him going wide, too wide. He couldn't close the trajectory, he was blowing the turn.

"Oh you're going wide, aren't you.... yeah, you're going wide.... yes, yes, you can't do it ..... you're too wide..... I'm coming through!" The thought dashed through my mind as I hit the gas and accelerated past him.

In that part of the track, you're going very fast and you're bent right over. You can't touch your brakes and you can't get up. Once you're in, you're in. If you made the slightest mistake, if your speed isn't right, you're out.

Gibernau came into the turn too fast, while I had exactly the right speed. I passed him, going ahead into the last, slow right turn - just as I had done three years earlier.

And that was how I won the 2004 Australian GP.
I won with the Yamaha.
I beat the Honda.
I retained my MotoGP world title.