Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

The 500cc British GP gets underway w ith Wayne Rainey (3) leading Christian Sarron (4) , Kevin Schwantz (34) and the rest of the pack. World Championship Road Race Series: Round 12 : chwant z wins S British GP, Pons. clinches 2S0cc tttle By Henny Ray Abrams DONINGTON PARK, ENGLAND, AUG. 6 Team Pep si Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz used a mid-race surge, th e right tire choice, and. some luck with backmarkers to win the Bri tish G rand P rix before a crowd of 68,000 people at Donington Park, his fourth win of the year. Second ' went to Rot h.mans J:lon da s World Champion Eddie Law- 14 son who finished the 30-lap, 75-mile race 0.97 seconds back with Team Lucky Strike Roberts' Wayne Rainey, th e championship points leader, 8.60 seconds behind in third. Fourth went to Scotsman Niall Mackenzie on the Marlboro Yamaha Team Agostini mount with Gauloises Blondes Yamaha's Christian Sarron of France fifth. By finishing ahead of Rainey for the third race in a row, Lawson was able to knock two more precious champ ionship points off Rainey's lead with the gap now 6.5, 180.5 to 174, with three races remaining. Sarron is a distant third with 127.5 points with Schwantz fourth at 122.5. . "It's never easy out there, " Schwantz, who rode a conservative race, ' said after the win. "We got caught up by a couple of backmarkers and 1 managed to sneak by them." The p ivotal lap was the 2 1st. Lawson had closed to within .7 seconds of race-leader Schwantz by cutting a new lap record of 1:34.51 minutes (95.22 mph) on the 20th lap. But on the 21st lap h e was severely impeded by a slower rider, his lap time over 1:36 mi':!utes while ?chwan~ was m the m iddle of a run in the high 34s. After that Lawson tried to make a late ch arge but realized he'd made th e wrong tire choice. . "I blew it," he said about choosing the harder Michelin compound. "I chose the wrong tir e. It 's my fault." Rainey was also hampered by a tire problem, his a front that was pushing, but for a different reason. "I went out on one chassis this morning and 1 didn't like the way it steered," he said. " So I went out on my spare and it was pushing th e front end so bad that 1 had to wait for it to settlein in the corners. 1 couldn't stay with . those guys off the corners:" Mackenzie also complained that after he pushed it hard in the beginning, "On th e, slower corners the front tire was tucking under." But his problems happened late in the race, well after he 'd endeared himself to the highly-partism crowd by leading briefly in the beginning. "By the sound of the crowd 1 didn 't do myself any harm," he said. There were a number of notable appearances and non-appearances at Donington, The most notable absentee was former World Champion Freddie Spencer who prematurely ended his unsu ccessfu l comeback by mutual agreeme nt with team owner Giacomo Agostini. Although he won't appear ' again in Marlboro colors, he will be paid the balance of his salary. Cagiva's Randy Mamola showed up at Donington, but not to race. H e'd had autoscopical knee surgery II days before the race weekend and was in too much pain to compete. ' H e ' ll also miss next weekend 's Swedish Grand Prix. He put his time to good use at Doningtoh, however, making innumerable fund-raising appearances for the "Save the Children " fund. Rothmans Honda's Michael Doohan was also a no-show due to his crash during the Suzuki 8-Hour the previous weekend. He, too, is expected back after the Swedish race, but in the meantime his Rothmans Honda saddle will be filled by perennial catch-rider Roger Burnett. After a spirited race-long tussle, Burnett finished 12th just behind Grand Prix irregular Fred Merkel on th e 1988 NSR500 out of Roberto Gallina 's HB Honda stable. 'Bu t the most noteworthy appear- . ance was put in by Cabin Racing's Bubba Shobert who made his first public appearance since the crash at Laguna Seca in mid-April. Shobert, along with his father, Don, was at Donington as a spectator to root on his close friend Rainey. He looked reasonably fit, although a bit gaunt. and he walked with a very slight limp. He said he still had some problems tiring in the evenings and his speech wou ld slur some late in the day. Bu t he planned to start riding again the week of August 13 and said he would try to race at the season-ending internatio nals in Japan. Like most sidelined racers, he wasn 't a good spectator and said he probably wouldn't come to watch another race, except for possibly the last GP in Brazil where the 500 title will most likel y be decided. The 250cc World Championship was decided here with Spaniard Sito Pons retain ing the title for his Campsa Honda team. Coming into the . race there was only a slight mathematica l possibility that ' he could be denied the ti tle if he were to finish behind Swiss rider J acq ues Cornu on the Lucky Strike Elf Honda. Bu t he passed Cornu on the eighth of 26 laps and pulled away to a comfortable 6.65-second win over HB Honda's Rein h ol d Ro th . Masahiro Shimizu was third on th e Ajinomoto Honda with Cornu fading to fourth and Loris Reggiani fifth on the HB CR I Honda. After thanking all of his various sponsors, Pons said that his current plans for 1990 were to move up to the 500cc class wi th backing by Campsa, but that nothing had been decided. The top three riders in th e 125cc World Championship finished 1-23 in the 125cc race, but in reverse order. Samson Sharp Racing's Hans Spaan led virtually the entire wa y, gradually stretching his advantage over Marlboro JJ Cobas's Alex Criville to 8.79 seconds at the end of the 24-lap, 60-mile event. Pi leri LM 's Ezio Gianola was four seconds la ter crossing the line in third with Stefan Prein fourth. American Alan Scott had run as high as fifth before crashing, unhurt, late in the race. . With two races to go, Giano leads Criville 128 to 126 with Spaan third at 118. . The most popular win of the day was in the sidecar class where the reigning World Champion British team of Steve Webster and Tony Hewitt extended their points lead by winning their fourth race of the year. Second, over II seconds in arrears, was the Dutch team of Egbert Streuer and Geral de Haas with ' the Swiss duo of Rolf Biland and Kurt Wa ltisperg about three and a half seconds behind Streuer. , After seven rounds, Webster leads Streuer 115 to 103 with Biland third at 85. . 500 Practice Most of the top teams had recently tested at the 2.5-mile Do n in g to n circuit in the British midlands with the grea test ben efit apparently going to Schwantz. Right from the start the Texan was the fastest, bettering th e existing qualifying record in the first session when he was the only rider to drop below I minute, 35 seconds. His I :34.83 was .26 seconds faster than R o th m a n s Honda's Wayne Garnder's 1988 pole-setting time. Schwantz lowered the mark again in the second session, this tim e to 1:34.49 and in Saturday's morning session did his best time of 1:34.05 on his penultimate lap to take his eighth pole position this year. He a lso clocked a 1:34.14 which was the second fa st est ti m e recorded b y

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