Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

had been a couple of degrees cooler, I feel I might ha ve been m uch closer to the front." But h e had an interesting view of the Cagiva. "It's cer tainly fast fas ter than the Yarnahas," he sa id. Behind thes e tw o, Beattie had got ahead of Itoh on the third lap and gradually drew away. Mea nwhile Schwantz was behind, and once he came to terms w ith h is own trick y co mbi nation o f a less -than perfec t chassis se ttings and tire ch oice he starte d to move forward, passing Itoh on lap eight and steadily closing on Beattie to sq ue eze past with an apologeti c wave of the hand at the end of the next lap. At this sta ge, the Suzuki was se ven seconds beh ind Kocin ski, but rather than closing the ga p con tinued to grow to 15 seco nds at the finish. "In racing, yo u have to learn ho w to lose as well as ho w to win," h e said p hiloso p hica lly. " If either the tire choice or the chassis se ttings are a little bit off, yo u can almost compensa te to ge t round the p roblem. But wh en they're bo th off, the re ' s n ot m uch you ca n do. It was har d to wa tch the other guys go away ahead o f me, but I knew the important thing was to ge t as many points as possible and not to take risks exceeding the bike's po tential." Beattie, meanwhile, observed that while Schwantz couldn't get away from him; neither could he get past. "I would have had to run really deep into the turns, and that way I might have ended up taking him out. He was going in really hard, maybe because he is more loose and relaxed with the bike than I am. " Itoh was dropping away in seventh, with a return of practice engine management problems to his injected Honda. "I was using a system tha t is still being developed, and at certain times during the race it lost a lot of power." Doubtless the team's analys ts would be poring over the computer read-outs late into the night. Marlboro Honda Pons' Alex Criville was five seconds adrift in eigh th, after battling with Lucky Strike Suzuki's Alex Barros until lap 15, when the Suz uki suffered a pow er valve link age breakage, and he lo st power and revs. The Brazilia n kept on droppi ng back, and was u nable to fend off the slow-starti ng Chandler's Cagiva in the closing stages. "So metimes w he n things start goi ng wrong in practice they keep on going wrong all weekend," he commented ruefully. Chandler had bogged the Cagiva on the line, and said later that he still felt a little timid with it. "Once I got going I felt pretty good. I think I'm on my way back up there," he said. Almost 20 seconds back, Bernard Garcia's Yamaha-France YZR won a fierce battle for 11th by just over a second from John Reynolds's Harris, with Michael Rudroff's Harris a similar distance behind . Juan Lopez-Mella led another three-strong group across the line almost 10 seconds behind, with Jose Kuhn taking the last point and Jeremy McWilIiams missing out by less than two-tenths of a second. The re were 22 finishers, w ith Serge David and Sean Emmett among a ha ndful of crashe rs, t he m o s t n o t ab le of who m was Niall Mackenzie, who dropped his Valvoli ne Roc on the third lap, witho u t injury. Andrew Stroud w as an early re tirement, aft er breaking a cr ankshaft and smashing his Ha rr is' s engine casings. Spe ncer retired aft er four laps with term ina l gearshifting problems that ha d begun before the race. Just to prove it to any poten tial doubter s, mechanics we re . seen try ing to move the lever by hand after he stopped, without success. Thus the title lead ch an ged hands, wi th Rainey moving back on top for the Rothmans (Left to right> Runner-up Luca Cadalora, winner Wayne Rainey and third-placed Michael Doohan shared the sp otli gh t after the race. first time since the fifth round, with 214 points to Schwantz's 203. Doohan is now equal third with Bea ttie on 136, with Cadalora up to fifth on 104 ahead of Itoh on 101. The fi rst race of the new Czech Republic could tum out to be very crucial for the World Championship. 250cc G ran d Prix Reggiani's first win of the season came after his teammate Ruggia had suddenly slowed while in the lead early on and cruised into the pits. Until his engine went off sick, the French Aprilia man seemed set to dominate the race, in spite of a ho rde of Hondas weaving around close to his back wheel. Reggiani's ot her asset was the sweet handling of the Aprilia chassis. "I knew the Ho ndas were more powerful, b ut I waited a litt le behi nd through most of the race un til I knew their tires would be go ing off, then at the end 1 was able to push on ahead," Regg iani said. He had ano the r ally: a fierce Italian riva lry between the Honda rid ers saw Biaggi and Capirossi collide wh ile disp uting the lea d on lap 14. Biaggi dropped to third, but Capirossi went flying across the gravel trap at the first corner, narrowly avoided hitting the barrier, then rode wildly back across the gravel to Tejoin in ninth, spitting with rage, his championship challenge badly dented . " I do n't wa nt to talk about it. I want to settle with Biaggi first," he said later. Romboni had led first, with Ruggia puIling through on the third lap and opening up a small advantage over the pursuit pack. Then on lap seven he was missing, appearing well down the field to tour into the pits, a piston broken. Now there we re five up front, with Romboni then Biaggi leading, Capirossi, Reg g ian i and Puig all close behi nd, swapping back and forth and d rawing s teadily away from the next group, led by Luis d ' Anti n f rom Ha rada, HB Ho nda's Helmut Bradl and the Yamaha of P.F. Chili. The next majo r reshuffle came at the s tart of lap 14, when Biaggi challenged Ca pirossi for the lead int o tum one . "I d on 't think it wa s m y fault, but w e touched. 1 know 1 lost tw o places, b ut 1 d idn't see what happened to hi m," said Biaggi later. T he li ttle double 125cc Wo rld Champion had go ne bucketting across the gravel, riding s traight back to rejoin in ninth, sp itting fury and riding like a demo n. It w as during his charge back Fifth-placed Kevin Schwantz struggled throughout the race with setup problems. that he broke the lap record, as he moved through the se cond group to lead Ha rada across the line by less than half-a-second. Up front, Reggiani had taken victory by al mos t a second, with Biagg i s tilI bla ming a lack of front tire ad hesion for his ina bility to get ba ck in fron t. He had also crashed in m o rn ing w arm-up , destroying his fav orite bik e, and was riding the spare. He had Pu ig on his ta il, with Romb oni less than a tenth beh ind hi m, say ing that his first race after tw o m on th s recuperation h ad found h im un derstandably reluctant to deploy full aggression. Ha rada was helped to sixth not onl y by Bradl 's collarbo ne weakness - he said after the race that a big slide had given him a big twin ge, as had a close fight with d'An tin, who even tually lost the front end and crashed with seven laps to go but also by hi s frie nd ly tea m mate Chili, who sacrificed his own chances to stand guard over his injured teammate. The Japanese rider was sufferi ng so me pain that was aggravated as the b ike started to slid e aro und towards the end of the race, and when Capiros si attacked in the closing stages, he was in no position to fight back. Bradl was three-tenths behind h im across the line, wit h Ch ili a similar distance behind him. At the finis h, German Yamaha rider Jochen Schmid had also closed up again to within two seconds. Kanemot o Honda' s N obuat so Aoki was a lonely 10th, with Rothma ns Honda's Tada yuki Okada in a lot o f pain after a heavy practice crash, bu t with enough power to ge t back in front of Wilco Zeelenberg's Exact Software Aprilia in the closing laps to secure 11tho Another 12 seconds back came Simon Crafar on the sole Lucky Strike Suzuki, disap pointed .after the b ik e b o gged down on the start line, leavin g him ou t of to uch with a hoped-for top-10 finish. 23

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