Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127361
~ TES Cagiva V590CF Road Racer T fitted to th e 1990 bikes whic h gave a notable improvement in lap tim es and top speed, seemed to confirm this as did the news tha t back hom e in th e lavishl y-equipped Rep arto Crose in the Varese factor y an all-new 1991 bike was nearin g completion, with revised chassis and comp letely new engine with wider 90-degree incl uded cylinder angle (by no coincidence, the same as th e titl e-winning Yamaha employed in 19901). Work con tin ues on th e new machine. exactly as if Cagiva were still goi ng racing in 1991 after all - a step tha t seems likely to hinge on the decisio n of one ma n - or rather, two: Eddie Lawson , who tested the Cagiva at Rijeka a t th e end of October and astonished GP observers by setting a tim e with the '90 bike fitted wi th some updated parts and '91 Miche lin produ ction tires for the 500cc GP class that woul d ha ve put him th ird on the grid for the 1990 Yugoslav GP, and Kenny Robert s, wh o holds an op tio n on Lawson 's services for 1991. It seems most p robable that Cagiva's presence on the 500 G P grid next season depends ! Cagiva,we love you,we need y u! o The SOOcc V-Iour Cagiva may be given new life with four-time World 'Champion Eddie Lawson at the helm. Alan Cathcart was given the opportunity to test the 1990Cagiva in Yugoslavia only weeks before Lawson was given the same chance. By Alan Cathcart Photos by Phil Masters ike th e song says, we never knew what love was till you were go ne. When Cagiva boss Clau dio Castiglioni called a public halt to 10 years of quixot ic endeavor on the part of th e Italian 500cc GP team back in july thi s year, he was su rely unprepared for the reactio n whi ch greeted his announcement. " We received hundreds of lett ers and telegra ms fro m fans all over the wor ld begging us to reconsider," says the yo un ger Castigl ion i brother , "and many journalists both here in Ital y and abroad wrot e articles pleading with us to recon sider. But the most surprisi ng messages we received were from our th ree j apanese rivals : all of the m (Honda, Yam ah a and Suzuki) sent fax messages urgi ng us to remai n in Grand Pr ix racing, and two of them even pl edged techn ical assi stance if we sho uld want it, to enable us to be more competitive than we have unfortunatel y been this season. My brother Gian fra nco and I were comp letely overwhel med by this response, wh ich co ntra sted very stro ng ly with the attitude of the FIM, which seems to be comp letely oblivious of th e effect their actions are ha ving on a team like Cagiva." The Castiglionis ongoing run-in with th e upper ech el ons of FIM officialdom has tended to obscure the real reason behind their decision to pullout of GP racing, at least for the time being: the Italian team 's inability to attract the services of one of the handful of top riders able to ride a modem 500cc V4 GP bike at 100% of its full potential. It's not from want of trying - Randy Mamola seemed just such a man when Cagiva hi red him three years ago after a promising 1987 season when the red Italian bikes were regularly fin ishing in the top five in the hands of Roche and de Radigues. L 16 But it was not to be, and an ill-fated ga mble on Pirelli tires only sun k their hopes further, so th at from being genuine co ntende rs for a ros tru m pos ition, Cagiva have in th e past coup le of seasons been reduced to literally making up the numbers - a function which nevertheless assumed vital importance in 1990 due to the paucity of 500 GP grids: without the three Cagivas of Mamola, Haslam and .Barros , an already thin spectacle would ha ve reached farcical proportions. Hence the japanese teams' concern at Cagiva's ap parent decision to pull out of racing: like another song has it Cagiva, we love you, we want you , we need youl Bu t a ll is no t always exactly as it seems, especially in Ital y, so th e fact that in the very sam e week that Claudio Castiglion i announced their withdrawal-from racing, the Cagiva team 's development rid er Massimo Broccooli was at Misano testing an all-new bike with carbon-fiber honeycomb chassis built for them by none other than Ferrari Engineering fueled rumors that th e announced pull-out was more apparent than real, a tactical ploy aimed at provoking exactly th e kind of respo nse it indeed evoked. Continued testing a t Rij eka after the season had officially ended and Cagiva were sup po sed to have no further race plans for the future, with 'evoluzione' parts enti rely on whether they ca n get Lawson to ride for them: if so, there'll be a two-bike team with Barros , if not - nient el After riding the Ferrari-chassised Cagiva with standard 1990 race-spec engine at Rijeka a couple of weeks before Lawson, I know wha t I'm rooting for : go for it , Eddiel Pu t bluntly, the Cagiva is far too good a bike to be allowed to disap pear from GP racing next season, and I'll bet that Eddie was genuinely surprised to find out just how good, given the team 's frankl y di sappointing performances this year. As the one man capable of whipping the new bike, and the team, into GP-winning shape next season -