Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Kevin Schwantz (1) led Alex e nville (8) to the fi nish line with th e Texan ending up sec ond behind Doohan. Schw antz Is second In the cham pion ship poi nt stan di ngs, 23 poi nts behind Doohan and nine ahead of Joh n Kocinski. nightmare of the ve ry -fast last righthander that closes the flat-out swerves through the Armco tunnel over the hillside beh ind the pad d ock. Fallers there are consid ered lucky to get away with it, especi a lly si nce th e la ck o f run-off ag ainst a steep bank means victim s and th e ir bi kes frequ ent ly bounce ba ck under the wheels of other riders. Sakata crashe d ther e on Friday; so d id Romboni, hurlin g his hands , w hile Lu is Ma urel w ho fell w ith him suffered a suspected broken leg. Lucky Alex Barros was anothe r to tumble there, wa lking away unscathed . Fortu nate ly, the threa t of race-day rain evapo rated as warm sun burned off th e d ouds, an d though Takeshi Ts uji m u ra did crash there in the 125cc race, he escaped serious injury. The wo rst injury carne elsewhere when luckless girl racer Tomoko Igata broke her left ankle and righ t heel. 500cc GRAND PRIX Alberto Puig leapt awa y in the lead through the chicane and the first comer, but Doohan was second, and he sw ept past on the first run up the hill to star t working on a lead that rapidly becam e unassailable. He kn ew the ma in challenge would come from Schw an tz, and th ough he didn't know where his rival w as: "I could see his lap board and it didn 't match m y lap board, so I jus t worked on making the gap as big as possible so nobody could get in my slips trea m ." Ev en thou gh flattered by Doohan best in the dry_ T Puig's delayin g pu rsuit, it was a masterful display of su stained on-the- limit riding, and he broke his own lap record on lap seven. Schwa ntz ha d go tte n off th e line well, out then ran into a familiar problem. "After about 50 metres (165 fee t) the motor loaded u p, an d the second ro w and m os t of the third ro w ca rne past me . It's so me thing the bi ke d oes sometimes, and we haven't been able to cure it." He ended lap one in 10th, then sliced thro ugh to second with typ ical h e firs t day of qualifying didn't count for much, with the track streaming wet and alarmingly slip pe ry over the flat-out hill se c tio n - as Al ex Barros proved. Luca Cadalora was fastest, then the amazing Albert o Puig in his first wet ride on a 500; followed by Michael Doohan (righ t), Kevin Schwan tz, Barros and Da ryl Beattie. But with a dry practice on Saturday and the race day ditto, it mean t a lot of work and risk-taking (Doohan also fell, "leaning it over too far" on a slower bend) for not very much reward. It also meant riders had only one da y ra ther than two to find the right gearing, chas sis settings and tires: In the dry, Dooh an and his ultra-fast and now alsostable Honda were completely in control. The Australian was whizzing up the hill, able to ride past the Cagivas and probably the Suzukis and Yamahas, too . H e was also fast round the comers, putting him well ahead of most of the oth er Hondas and driving horne his ad vantage. He was also happy with settings and tires, giving him time to wait deliberately for slower traffic and practice finding ways past th em. "The bike's th e same as at Jerez, after we made suspension ad justments jn [ararna tests. It' s working really well everyw here," he said. Schwantz had to w ork hard to ge t his Suzuki even close, with a string of desperate laps at the end that brought him to within just over six tenths of the Honda, barely close enough for him to say: "I think I can race with him if I can get his draft, but not beat him." His di fficulty was no t so m uch speed as handlin g. "We have the chas sis working better, but it's still moving around under brakes and into the comers, and we have to try somemore selling changes tomorrow." He wasn't sure if he would use the new ram-air fairing, which he did not use for his fast times . "That was more a matter of the better chassis being with the old fairing," he said. Puig was third, his second time in his first 500 year on the front row. "The Honda is fast, and my team have assurance over the next four laps . But by then Doohan was almost four seconds ahead, and still stretchin g away steadily so tha t by th e time he started lapping backrnar ker s on lap 12, he was a lm ost seven seconds clear . By the time Schwantz arri ved in second, Puig had lost touch somew ha t, and only Criville was able to go with the redand-white Suz uki. The Spaniard, in his best race all year, stayed with the World Champion, mainly by virtu e of his speed up the hill and "perfect se tti ngs a nd some really good settings, " he said. "I don't like these really fast tracks, but I can' t complain abou t the bike." The last place on row one went to Barros, who was struggling against various minor misfortunes including an engine problem on the bike with the better chassis settings, an d vice vers a. He crashed for a second time in the last session, luckily unhurt, at a slow part of the track. "The rain really put us behin d with our program, and .the oth er things mad e it worse. I'm ha ppy w ith the time, but not wi th the speed of the bike. It was hard work." Ale x Criville led row tw o, his best posit ion of the year, and he was an other to praise the Honda's generosity with top-end speed . He had bee n second at one poin t in the last session, and said : "I finish ed the session too 'soon, because I stop ped for a new rear tire, but then it was too late to get a better time." He was only half-a-second down on Schwantz, wi th John Kocinski sixth, only half-a-ten th slower. The Cagiv a looked strong throughout, and might have been higher, but Kocinski complained tha t his efforts at the end of the session had been thw arted by traffic. Then came a relatively large gap to Cadalora, almost half-a-second do wn and complainin g of continuing balance problems with the Yamaha, in spite of a batch of new 17-inch fron t Dunlop s."I can only ride the bike to 75 percent of my ability," he complained. Sh inichi Itoh w as alongsid e to complete row tw o, only a 10th down, but hav ing trouble getting d rive out of the bend s . He u ses d iffer e nt engine settings fro m Dooh an, with the '94-style pea kier po wer - good for top speed, but an obsta cle to ge tting on the gas ea rly. . Ca giva's Doug Ch an dl er led row three, with Daryl Beattie alongside. Both ha d started the season badly, and were getting better, if slowly . Importantly for the Austra lia n, he was a t least on an up ward curve with the bik e, ins tead of all at sea, and might have been hig her than tenth if the first day ha dn't been wasted. "1 did a lot of laps an d I was getting faster every lap," he said. It was at leas t so me comfort that they ma naged to sta y ahead of Reggiani's V-twin Aprilia, 11th-fas test at a track w here the bike performed a lot better than he had expected - especia lly since it was still running the Mk1 low-tune engine, as a t Jerez. Indeed, he was less than six mph down on top speed and got to his maximum very quickly. On the twists in Spain he'd be slower than the en top 250; her e he was a full second ahea d. Nia ll Mackenzie completed row three in his usual top privateer position, but was,far from hap py afte r con tinuing engine problems meant that they'd again felt obliged to drop the Bartol power-up cylinders to go back to stock Yamaha parts for the big-bang engine. " It's nothing special. I like the track, but wi thout speed up the hill, you're tires," but couldn 't challenge. "I'm satisfied. My goal was a podium finish, and 1 achieved that, " he said later. A little wa y back , Pu ig had b een joined by Kocins ki and Ito h for some close combat. Then with 10 lap s to go, all th e leaders ran into heavy lapped traffic an d Puig lost touch , complainin g la ter of so me pain in his arm (he had carpal tunnel surgery over the w inte r). Then Kocinski moved ahead of the slithering Itoh and seemed set to take fourth, only to ru n into more last-lap trouble. A lost," he sai d. Ever the real ist, .he decided early that he wouldn't over-gear in the hope of picking up a factorybike tow up the hill. As usu al, th e battle for th e 250cc pole was between Ma x Blaggi and Loris Capirossi, in what has becom e a good -na tured rivalry. It was won this time by the former, by me re thou sandths of a second. "The Aprilia's really fast and going well," he said . "People say 1 only go fast when I am following Loris, bu t this time I was alone." In fact, it was Capirossi wh o followed him to get his second-fastest time, but he, too , was happy. "1 did that on a part-worn tire, because there wasn't time to pit for a new one," he said. "My bik e see ms faster through the com ers than his. I am sure it will be a good race." The pair was alm ost a second ahead of the two Japanese riders who completed the fr ont row . Tad a yuk i Okada was the faster, the factory Honda rider compla ining of a little unders teer through the chican e, but saying he expected to race for the first time on the new 16.5-inch front tire. "I think the Michelin lasts better in the race than the Dunlops," he said (he is substantially the fastest 250 ride r on the French tires ); adding: "Because I crashed here las t year and spoil ed my season, I will be cautious tomorrow." Nobuatsu Aoki was merely hundred ths slower for his second front row of the year, achieved in spi te of misgiv ings about the tra ck, especially in th e wet. "If it rains tomorrow, [ think I will stay in bed, " he said. Tetsuya Harad a led row tw o, the defending World Champion' s bestposition of the year so far. "My hand is a little better, but the main thin g is that there is not so much braking here, so it doesn't give me so mu ch trouble," th e Ya maha rid er said. He adm itt ed th at he had used a qualifying tire for his time, to compensate for his injury. Ralf Waldmann was alongside, the 250 roo kie showing star qua lity as he threatened to claim his first frontrow posit ion . He was a 10th ahead of his HB Honda teammate Doriano Rornbon i, th e Italian still troubled with vexing chassis setting problems. He was also very lucky to su rvive, virtu ally unscathed, a crash at one of the fastest and mos t dangerou s com ers of the track on Friday; Luis Maurel, who was also involved, suffered a su spec ted fractured leg. , • J;p Ruggia concluded t he second row; very disappointed after having won the last race. "My engine just ' doesn't want to rev," he said. Jimmy Filice was 18th, on row five after yet more engine trouble left him desperately short of dry lap s. "Morning warm-up is going to be real important for me ," he sa id . Jean-Michel Bayle al so suffered engine problems, ending up 30th out of 33 qu alifiers. 15

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