South Africa opens the door to the most expected World Championship.
The Repsol riders, led by Alex Barros and Nicky Hayden, among the biggest favourites in the three classes.
The first of 16 rounds of the 2004 Motorcycle World Championship will take place next weekend at the South African circuit of Welkom. As every season, the winter has been much too long and all riders, teams and fans are looking forward to the first race of the season.
With the switch of the reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi to Yamaha, the Repsol Honda Team will make its debut with a new formation after the arrival of Alex Barros as new teammate to Nicky Hayden. Barros, who had a difficult season last year in Yamaha, a season full of injuries and crashes, gets back onto the bike with which he managed a superb end of the season in 2002. After a slow but positive recovery of the shoulder he got injured in 2003, the Brazilian rider gets back to Honda, this time within the Repsol Honda Team and with the firm objective of fighting for the 2004 title. His teammate Nicky Hayden will face his second season and, as his results during winter have shown, he will be aiming to everything this season, which is just about to start. Hayden, who this year won’t have the burden to race on circuits he doesn’t know, has had an impressive progression since he arrived at the World Championship last year. With two podiums and the final fifth overall position in the last Championship, the young North American rider from Kentucky has set the title as his aim for 2004.
In the quarter litre class, Repsol will continue to be present with highest level riders in the Team Aspar. Fonsi Nieto will be keeping the Repsol colours he already defended last year, while Sebastián Porto, who wore the YPF colours in 2003, has become part of the Team Repsol Aspar and will be sharing colours and structure with Nieto. Both are fast riders and have already clinched some victories, and they both have qualities enough to be fighting for the title in the 250cc class. Sebastián Porto, who is back on an Aprilia after having ridden Yamaha and Honda in the last years, has had hardly any need to lap to adapt to his new machine, showing himself as one of the fastest riders of the class together with Frenchman De Puniet. His teammate Fonsi Nieto has also been improving bit by bit this preseason and has got the needed rhythm to reach the first race in South Africa will a total success guarantee.
In the minor category, Pablo Nieto and Sergio Gadea will be the riders in charge of defending the Repsol colours. The first of them will make it after having clinched a victory, several podium finishes and the seventh overall position last year. His teammate Gadea, in his first season in the World Championship, has a hard learning year ahead, although he has enough quality and talent to give a surprise in the second half of the season
