Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BR~D~CE.ili~~i~p_b_~_R_~_eS_m_'~_:R_OM~d3_·~~~~~~~~ m Shinichi Itoh (6), Kevin Schwantz (34), Wayne Rainey (1) and Daryl Beattie (4) were this close for the entire 500cc Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit. When it was all said and done, Wayne Rainey had won his 22nd 500cc GP. Raine wins do fi ht in aan By Michael Scott Photos by David Goldman and Patrick Gosling SUZUKA,JAPAN,APR 18 ayne Rainey won an epic Japanese Grand Prix - his second successive win, and yet another fighting victory that showed the Marlboro Roberts Yamaha triple champion's formidable caliber as a racer. Left behind after yet another muddled start, Rainey fought his way through from ninth to join a fierce four-bike tussle for the lead, which changed hands countless times during a heroic afternoon's work. It was his 22nd career win in the 500cc class, putting him fourth on the all-time GP win list, equal with Geoff Duke, John Surtees and his own team boss Kenny Roberts (only Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood and Eddie Lawson have more). It was also one of his hardest ever. Pole starter Kevin Schwantz and the Lucky Strike Suzuki were less than a tenth-of-a-second adrift; third-place Daryl Beattie another two-tenths down; and fellow Rothmans Honda rider Shinichi Itoh less than two seconds behind after a classic race which all had led several times, and in which they swapped places sometimes three or more times a lap. Schwantz had a new lap record as consolation for having been slowed by backmarkers in the crucial closing laps. The race was run in sunny if windy conditions with a crowd of 71,()()(), with no rain all weekend - unusual at Suzuka, and proof that moving the date back three weeks had paid off. It was proof also that long fast circuits are real GP tracks, and lead to real GP races. Marlboro Honda Pons' Alex Criville was fifth, and Lucky Strike Suzuki's Alex Barros sixth, with Rothmans Honda's Michael Doohan deeply disappointed after managing no better than seventh after fitting a special dual-control rear brake with an extra hand control to compensate for his still-stiff right leg. For the crowd and television viewers, it was the race of a lifetime; for the 500cc cJass, it was notice that Rainey is back, in the biggest possible way. Now up to his third chassis of the year, he is at last satisfied with the Yamaha, full of praise for his Dunlop tires, and has an even grea ter championship lead to defend as the circus moves to Europe. Earlier, Japanese superstar Tetsuya Harada and the Telkor Yamaha had W tI 16 underlined his impact on GP racing with a brilliant and equally hard fought win in a nail-biting 250cc race. Tadayuki Okada and the Rothmans Honda was second, just over half-a-second adrift. But the unluckiest man of the race was Marlboro Honda's Loris Capirossi. The Italian had survived any number of lurid slides to battle with the dominant Japanese duo, and moved into the lead in the closing stages. Then he went one skid too far, falling on the last lap, remounting to trail in a heartbroken 10th. This left third to his countryman Dorlano Romboni on the HB Honda, who withstood a desperate overtaking attempt by practice crasher Nobuatso Aoki on the Cup Noodle Kanemoto Honda in the final chicane. Frenchman Jean-philippe Ruggia was fifth, the best result this year for an Aprilia, with returning champion John Kocinski's Lucky Strike Suzuki overpowered· and trailing in a solitary ninth position. Dirk Raudies became the only rider to win three races this year, with a carboncopy start-to-finish 12Sec win that he is making his trademark. The lOS-pound· German found it harder than at the previous two races because of an error in carburetor setting. But he still humbled the Japanese opposition, leaving them to battle for second place safely in his wake. For a third race, the runner-up slotwent to Kazuto Sakata from teammate Takeshi Tsujimura. The top three were all mounted on Honda RSl25s. The weekend was a disaster for comeback superstar Freddie Spencer. The three-time World Champion crashed heavily on Saturday morning to suffer his third injury of the year. The American will be out of racing for at least four weeks. But it was a triumph for Dunlop, who shod all the winners here and have won seven outof nine GPs so far this year. 500c:c Grand Prix Several riders were caught out again by the erratic starting procedure. Among them Schwantz, who got rolling and stopped again, but still managed to jump away first and lead into the first comer. His promising new teammate Barros was on his tail, and slipped past into the chi- cane to lead the first lap, with Itoh's Honda hard up behind the pair. Rainey was much worse off. Worried about the chance of a one-minute penalty as the start-jumping controversy continues, he was caught napping and was out of the top 10 on the way into the first tum. By the end of lap one the charging champion had passed Australian Kevin Magee to take eighth, but had a big mountain to climb. On lap two, Schwantz took the lead again. Then Itoh showed the strength of Honda's top speed (leading to yet more suggestions that he was using fuel injection), simply motoring past down the straight; and Schwantz showed his own fighting quality by outbraking him into the chicane a t the end of it. The pair seemed set to go back and forth this way almost indefinitely, with Barros slowly losing ground behind, handily placed to hold up any pursuers. . In fact, the Brazilian had cooked his rear tire, and was not able to play such a role at all, for he was soon to be left behind by a greater margin. At the same time, after five laps, Rainey arrived behind him after picking his way remorselessly through, and forced his way past in the middle of the Esses, in too much of a hurry to wait for a more convenientspot. Beattie had started better than Rainey, but was not really inspired until the American passed him, and he was also picking his way through, a little distance behind. Meanwhile, Schwantz had tired of the game of being passed on the straight and repassing into the chicane, and had decided to hold a watching brief behind Itoh for a while. By one-third distance, Rainey's charge had carried him up to the leaders, and on lap eight he was harrying Schwantz, and then in front of him. He promptly attacked Itoh on the inside into the Spoon Curve, only to take his tum at feeling the hot blast of Honda power as ltoh surged back ahead down the straight. Rainey already looked like a race winner, but it was early yet, and Schwantz wasn't prepared to let him get away. On lap 10, as Rainey ran wide at the hairpin, Schwantz moved into an attacking position, and dived past both of them, Itoh at the end of the straight, and Rainey into the chicane. Now the front three were all over each other, and this gave Beattie his chance to catch up, and he swept through to take the lead at the end of lap 13. And now began a superb feast of top cJass 500cc racing, with four bikes closely matched on lap times but faster at different points of the track, battling back and forth. Beattie led for three laps, Schwantz for the next three, with Rainey dropping back to fourth then fighting his way up to second again. If he'd been on the charge before, Rainey now redoubled his efforts, his slide-happy Dunlop tires allowing him to paint black lines out of almost every corner. A lesser rider would have been crashing. With three laps to go, he was on Schwantz's tail, and trying to pass all over the place, even where it was clearly impossible. Then he did slip through at the end of the straight, and Beattie followed him past the Suzuki. Then Itoh blew by at the end of the pit straight, prompting Schwantz· to comment later: "I felt in a good position, then all of a sudden 1was fourth." They were still so very close that the result was open. Then they ran up against backmarker Jose Kuhn as they ran into the chicane with one lap left. The French beginner let the first two past, then baulked Schwantz and Itoh. The delay meant the Japanese rider lost touch once and for all, but Schwanti wasn't prepared to let it all slip away, and produced a superhuman performance to get back with the leading pair. He dived past Beattie into the chicane for the last time, and attacked Rainey as well. But the Yamaha rider had just enough in hand to stay in front across the line. After the race, Rainey was full of praise for Dunlops and the third and best incarnation of the Yamaha chassis. "The tires won the race," he said. "I was trying to be cautious, then 1 rode like an old woman into the first tum. But my tires were better than what the other guys have. 1 could pick up the pace and ride aggressively." He also complimented his rivals for "clean, safe riding." Schwantz was resigned to his defeat. "I don't know if the backmarkers affected the result, but when 1 dropped to fourth earlier with two laps left 1 didn't have time to get back up." And Beattie was his typical laid-back self. "I'm really happy with the result because with the problems I had during qualifying 1 didn't think 1 could be near the front. My mechanic Nick Davis made a lot of chassis changes today, and I went into the race not knowing what to expect, but it worked really well." And thus ended a hell of a race, which quite overshaqowed whatever happened behind. Which was that Barros was fading with his rear tire sliding badly, and lost fifth place to Criville's Honda on the last lap; both of them narrowly ahead of Doohan, angry at having made such a bad tire choice that he could do nothing to improve on his bad start. The Australian had crashed in practice without injury, and was wary. "All the time I thought the machine would snap sideways - a disastrous day as far as I'm concerned." He did narrowly outdistance Toshihiko Honma, drafted in through an unexpected twist in race regulations to take over the injured Spencer's Yamaha France bike. The Japanese championship contender, who had won a national race at Suzuka three weeks before on a factory Yamaha, in tum beat Kevin Magee after a race-long battle, by just two-tenths of a second. Magee, in his first GP ride since 1991, was recovering from injuries during practice for ap earlier All-Japan race.

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