Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Australian Wayne Gardner easily won the second round of the 500cc World Championship in Jerez. Spain. / Pier Francesco Chili leads Kevin Schwantz. Christian Sarron and Randy Mamola in their battle for fifth place. World Championship Road Race Series: Round 2 Gardner dominates Spani$h GP By Henny Ray Abrams JEREZ, SPAIN, APR. 26 Rothmans Honda's Wayne Gardner took over the 500cc World Championship points lead, soundly defeating Marlboro Yamaha's World Champion Eddie Law~n.by close to 24 seconds in the 37th Grand · . P.nx .0f. Spam on the. Jerez arcult 10 southern Spam. Elf Honda's Ron Haslam was a 12 distant third ahead of HB Honda's Niall Mackenzie and Sl,1Zuki's Kevin Schwantz. ~ardner now leads Team L~cky Stnke Roberts' Randy Mamola, sIxth today, 27 to 20 after two of 16 rounds in the World Championship Road Race Series. Haslam IS third with 16 points. Mamola's Lucky Strike teaffimate Mike Baldwin dropped out on the 13th of 30 laps with gearbox problems while running ninth. HRC's Freddie Spencer remained sidelined by the collarbone injuries he suffered seven weeks ago in a practice crash at Daytona and chose not to race here. The 250cc class was won by Marlboro Yamaha's Martin Wimmer, who passed teammate Luca Cadalora on the 20th of 25 laps to claim the win. Wimmer also moved to the top of the championship standings with 21 points to the 16 of Juan Garriga, who finished third today on the Ducados Yama1la. In the most exciting finish of the day, GareUi's Fausto Gresini, runner-up in the World Championship last year, passed Domenico Brigaglia with two laps to go in the 125cc race and held on for a .34second,win. Just three seconds back was AGV rider Paolo Casoli who ran third the entire race. Today's race was the first round of the World Championship for the 125cc, 80cc and sidecar classes. Their order of finish, therefore, confirms their placings in the championship race. Like Gardner and Gresini, Derbi's Jorge Martinez repeated his Spanish win of a year ago. Starting from the pole position, the Spaniard took over the lead in the 80cc race on the seventh of 18 laps and won by .92 seconds over fellow Spaniard Alejandro Criville, also Derbi-mounted. Julian MiralJes made it a Derbi sweep of the podium by finishing third, .42 seconds behind Criville. After pole-sitters Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltisperg dropped out of the sidecar race, it was just a matter of how much Steve Webster and Tony Hewitt would win by and at the nag the margin was 45.20 seconds. Second went to Alain Michel and Jean-Michel Fresc with the Zurbruegg brothers finishing third. The top three rigs were all Yamahapowered LCRs. The Spanish round of the World Championship was moved from the Jarama circuit, just outside of Madrid in central Spain, here to Jerez for the first time this year. And although the race was warmly received by the 130,OQO spectators, the riders were less enthusiastic about the 16-turn, 2.62-mile track. They complained that it was too tight and slow and that traffic would be a problem.. "I think the traffic is awful," polesitter Lawson said after establishing a mark of I:50.69 for an average of 85.25 mph in timed practice. "It could work for you or against you. It depends on where you catch them. It's not like other tracks where you can ride around them. Here you have to be on line." Gardner was next to Lawson on the front row, just three-tenths of a second slower and already affected by the traffic. "f knocked one of the backmarkers down in the fourth session," Gardner said. "I crashed into him and kept going. I didn't mean to. I nearly ran into the back of him, then I went on the inside and he moved down. I was mainly trying tires and eventually we came back to where we started out." Qualifying third, less than a second behind Gardner was Mackenzie, who was one of the few riders that liked the track even though he fell once in testing here last week and once more in practice. "A track like this I really like," the personable Scot said. "But because of the slow and medium speed corners it's hard to get the gearbox right. Normally, you can get it right for slow, medium or fast corners, but there's always one here where you lose out." Mackenzie explained that because of his riding style which involves braking late into corners, he has to compensate for the radial tires. "They don't slide or creep, they just let go. After I fell off I knew what the problem was. But the radials last longer and are more stable and more consistent. " The front row was filled out by Lawson's teammates Rob McElnea and Tadahiko Taira. The entire front row had the benefit of previous testing at Jerez, something Team Lucky Strike Roberts didn't have. And in practice it showed with Mamola ninth, 2.76 seconds behind Lawson, and Baldwin 12th, 3.25 seconds off the pace and just behind Schwantz. Having to sort out the engine, suspension and gearing, and test tires during qualifying proved to be too much work in too little time, especially since the Dunlop tires were considerably less efficient than their Michelin counterparts. "It's going to be hard work," Mamola said. "This is a very technical circuit with lots of hard braking and medium-speed comers." Baldwin said, "You're looking for a compromise and you just have to

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