| 12th October: Ten Sports continues its comprehensive
coverage of the 2006 MotoGP series when it brings live coverage of round 16 from
Portugal this weekend. The Championship could not be more evenly
poised as it heads to the Iberian Peninsular with five times World Champion, Valentino
Rossi just 12 points behind Nicky Hayden who leads this year’s championship
race. Hayden looked to have an unassailable lead just a few races
ago but the reigning champion has been gradually narrowing the gap lying second
in the standings on 224 points with Hayden on 236 points. And with
Hayden’s bike looking off the pace in the last race in Japan the American
will have much to contemplate preparing for this vital penultimate race.
Rossi, speaking ahead of this weekend’s race said "Since Brno,
when we finally understood everything about what we needed to do to make our bike
work at 100% again, we've been very strong everywhere and on the podium each time.
Of course we know we could have won more if we'd been like this earlier in the
season but we can't do anything about that. We know our potential and when we've
started from the front lately we've been on the podium each time, so we have to
carry on like this." The battle for third spot in the championship
is even closer with Marco Melandri, Loris Capirossi and Dani Pedrosa separated
by just 7 points. The Estoril circuit is one of the trickiest tacks
on the MotoGP calendar, combining long, constant radius corners with heavy breaking
zones, bumpy straights and a difficult chicane. The action gets
underway at 15-30 IST live on Ten Sports. ABOUT TEN SPORTS:
Only launched in April 2002, Taj TV’s Ten Sports is watched by more viewers
than any other sports channel in the sub-continent and is available in more than
50 million cable/ satellite households worldwide. Ten Sports is the world’s
biggest producers of cricket. The Channel broadcasts cricket from Sharjah, the
West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Morocco throughout the Indian sub-continent
and Asia, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. Other cricket properties broadcast
by Ten Sports in certain territories include internationals from India, the World
Cup 2003 and the ICC Champions Trophy 2004. FOR MORE INFORMATION
ON TEN SPORTS PROGRAMMES, CONTACT: Murtuza Madraswala – Taj Television
India Pvt Ltd, 403 Manish Commercial Complex, Dr. A.B. Road, Mumbai, India. Tel
no: +91 22 6662 3101; Fax no: +91 22 6662 629; Email: murtuzam@tajtv.com or visit
www.tensports.com | 
