Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

• was second, thou gh it took a bold move on the final lap to get there. Raudies, using a new rear tire Dunlop had developed, recovered from a bad start to take the point on the fifth of 17 laps, never to be headed. He would win by 9.79 seconds after 63.9 miles of racing which he completed in 39 minutes, 8.938 seconds at an average speed of 97;934 mph. Five different riders held second spot, with the spot changing hands each of the last four laps. Sakata was as far back as si xth with fiv e laps to go , but took advantage of the misfortune of his teammate Takesh i Tsujimura, who dropped out on the fmallap while insecond, to , mov e up a s po t. He also had to pass Team Baumann ' s Manfr ed Bau ma nn who finishe d th ird, his best ever GP result. Bec ause he's finished every race of the year - six seconds and a win - Sakata lea ds th e till e chase wi th 145 p oints. Raudies, who has one DNF to go with his five wins and one third, is second with 141 while Tsujimura has % . The Sid ecar GP went to BHa nd Racing ' s Rolf Biland and Kurt Waltis pe rg, the Swiss pai r tak ing thei r second race in a row and extending their lead in the World Championship. Biland The SOOcc GP q uick ly turned into a three-man battle between Kevin Schwantz (34), Alex Barros (hidde n) and Michael Doohan (2). ," '"r,,"~'_""" . ' ' . '~ .. ' .~ . . !!11il"! " ,,1"""'''Ilt easy to pa ss her e. The first thing about learning the trackis that it's hard to pass. It m.ay take a lap or so to get by someone. It just seems to muck it all up when you come on a lapped rid er," Beat tie said. Afte r swapping fro m Showa to Oh lin s su spension compon ents, Cagiva 's Doug . ne yea r af ter thro wing awa y his best ever shot a t the World Championship, Cha nd ler led off the second row , quick enough to be the last rider on the same second Rothm ans Hond a's Mick Doohan (righ t) retu rned to Assen, a track heloathes for as Doohan with room to improve. Chandler felt he was trying too hard to put in a fast what it d id to him in 1992, and qu alified on the pole position. It was his first pole lap and that it hurt his lap times. in over a year - the last being the German GP at the Nurburgring - and he was as sur"I was too agg ress ive and wa s charging the comers instead of being more relaxed p rised as everyone else, mos tlyb ecause a qui ck lap here requires mOre than the b te and getting a flow going which is what you have to do here," he said, , horse po wer the Honda delivers: .' '" . .': " , The Cagiva team had testeqthe Ohlins forks and shock twice before usin g them at "I go t l ucky here;" Doohan said, his time of tw o-minu tes;,3.267 secon ds (1 . 6 Assen and Chandl er found that it mad e for a lot less work. "It makes it easier to ride mph) which was not quite up to Kevin Schwantz's record time of two years ago. "I just the thing. It's more abso rbent. You feel like y ou can go faster with the right stuff," he kind of got a lap in. We were trying to get the bike ru nning consistently fast. I'm happy said, adding tha t they were still a little down on acceleration, thou gh the equa l of the with the pole position, but I did n't expect to be here. Throu ghou t the last three sessions Japanese machin ery on top speed and braking. ' "I was real pleased wi th the way the lap times were so consis tent. The rear tire went I've been in the pits as much as I've been on the track." Among the reasons Doohan was in the pits so much was that he was trying new off a little just like it's going to do in the race, but I could still do the times. That's somecylinders and carburetors in an effort to boos t the mid-range power. Honda also admi t- thing we cou ldn 't do before we swapped suspension to the Ohlins," he said. ted they were using fuel injectio n, but said tha t it was on ly being used on Shinichi . Next to Chandler came another northern Californian: Marlboro Roberts Yamaha 's Itch 's bike at Assen . Wayne Rainey, the World Champion struggling to find a s et up after numerou s tries. Still, Doohan was pleased with the result. "The main thin g is that we have ended ," We're just working on the bi!1)\i"~F' , ,;: The' winner of the last two GPs, HB H6 ri'da's Dorial1o Rornbonl, was second fastest Schwantz came to Assen asthe points leader, but instead ofthinkirig of protecting 'and nonplussed byCApirossi 's tiIrtes. "Capiross! was a little faster in the end, out ifwas the lead he was intent on extend ing it. "I'm racing to win tomo rrow," he said. "If Alex only a fraction of a second and doesn't bother me at all," he said. "We found a really (Barros) is there, I'll probably race from behin d him, not in front. I think it's just a mat- good setup immediately in the afternoon and with the time remaining we tried differter of time before he snea ks past us all and wins one," Schwantz said after qualifying, entthings, but they were no better. We'll go back to our morning setup for the race." and Barros certainly had a good start. After the two Ho nda s came the factory Ap rilias of Loris Reggiani and [ean-Philippe . On the grid he was beside his teammate, the Brazilian ,013-of-a-second behin d his Ruggia which were not a t the mercy of the Hond as as they'd been at the last two highsenior teammate and clearly coming to grip s with the Suzuki desp ite falling off in the speed circu its. final session. . Rothmans Honda's Tadayuki Ok ada re turn ed to racing following a tw o-race . "Someth ing went funny with the front end, I'm not sure exactly what failed;'; he absence caused by his crash at the Au strian Grand Prix. He was fifth-fastest, just in said.uBut that spoiled all our plans. Thalwasthebike,Ihad chose ~o race, using t!!e , ' fiont o, f Telko~-Yamaha Va lesi's Tetsuya .HaIada, who ,continues to !ead the ch~piolderchassis, but we were still doing tests one bike against the oth er to try different ' onship, though not in the dominating way he,did early in the year. • :,w . ':~1@.3;' chassis and suspension settings as well as tires." Rothmans Kanemoto Honda's Max Biaggi put the bike with the fastest trap speed At the far end of the front row , Rothmans Honda's Daryl Beattie was content to be into seventh place, one better than Lucky Strike Suzuki's]ohn Kocinski whose machine fourth fastest in his first trip to the track many have found difficult to learn. was the slowest among the front-runners on the radar guns. "Every time I go out I find somewhere to go quicker," he said, ad ding that learning "We're maxed out right now," Kocinski said. "There isn't anything more I can do. the track meant learning a new setup for the banked comers. "You need a lot heavier I'll give it my best shot in the race and maybe we 'll luck into a good result." Kocinski missed the first 45 minutes of the morning session when he overslept and springs, considerably on the rear, because the dips really make the bike squat and you carry a lot of comer speed too. .. ' " d idn' t get the wake-up call at his hotel. He took complete responsibility for the mistake "I'm happy to be on the front row . I didn't want to b~ too far back because it's not and apologized to the team. • ".'" ' k',. ' " . • .. j" ·'··'\.iiI"lr'--_ ............._ _..................""""'_ _••,"'",. =:._--'_.............o;;;iil....... ~_...." _ . " "lP''TI!1'!''''ll_i''''iI'''!,!1i

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