Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. . . Round 4: Italy }-'---'----'_ --!.---''---- By Johan Vandekerckhove 14 M1SANO, ITALY MAY 29 , uzzy Kawasaki's Scott Russell arrived at the Santamonica ci rcuit on the last weekend f Ma y w i th a 22point lead over series runner-up Aaron Slight. Three scorching hot days later, he left Ital y with a 31-point lead over the Ne w Zea lander. But tha t ma y end up being th e leas t of Slight's problems. With his Honda RC45 failing to pass a fuel test given a t the Donington Park round in Engl and (see sideba r), Slight ma y w ell e nd u p losi n g a not he r 34 points to his Georgian rival. Slight wasn 't th e only one under pressure in Italy. Ducati turned up the hea t in their home country, at least preventing Russell from repeating his double landslide victory at Hockenheim. As always, Ducati and some Italian rid ers proved to be d ifficu lt to bea t on their home ground. In the first heat , Piergiorgio Bontempi seemed on his way to his best su pe rbike result eve r, until a br oken fuel pump put an end to th e Italian's lead - handing Russell a comfortable win, his fourth of the season. In the second heat, Gianca rlo Falappa notched up the long-awai ted second win for the Ducati 916 as he beat Russell and the amazing Mauro Lucch iari who wa s on his last year's 888: Doug Polen, on ' the o the r h a nd , struggled in the Italian race, which was run in very hot conditions in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators. After two disappointing races, the two-time World Champion dropped back from third to fourth in the point standings. - - ---'----' RACE ONE Su rprisingly, Stephane Mer tens got ahead of the pack on the first lap. The D u cati 888 -mounted Belgian wou ld hold that position for five laps - then Falappa got ahead, followed by Bonternpi and Russell . The lead changed hands again on the 10th lap whe n Bon tempi took over for a single go-rou nd. It wasn't until the halfway ma rk that th ings finally s tarted to se ttle d own a bit. That w as whe n Russell fi nally moved into the lead , shadowed by Bontemp i, while Mertens s ta r te d losi ng ground fast. And then the Belgian was caught by both Lu cch iari .and Slight. Fogarty, meanwhile, was doing pret ty well to that point, even th ough he had to ma nage without firs t gea r from the early laps. The problem only got worse, and Fogarty finally had to pull in on the 18th lap . At th a t po in t, Piro vano and Terry Rymer had also e xit ed . The It alian cras hed in a gravel pit and the Brit was sto p ped by an engine problem on th e Muzz y Kawasaki. The race for the lead came down to th e final laps . Three laps before th e finish a huge roar from the cro wd indi cated that an Italian had tak en th e lead . Un fortun ately, it didn't las t long as Bontempi's Kawasak i soon rolled to a sil e n t halt, th e vi c ti m of a bad fuel pump. That left Russell alone ou t front. Falappa was next, with the Italia n losing time after some off-road excursions cau sed b y the b ike ju m pi n g o u t of gear. On the last lap, Slight got in front of Mertens and took th e th ird rostrum position. "It was a smooth race," Russell said. Bad g,---as-,---~ ome s tuff call ed diene gained overnight popularity (and awe) w hen the FIM published a press release on May 25 - two days before the start of unofficial practice in Misano stating tha t the fuel used by Aaron Slight (right) and Andreas Mekl au in Doningto n Park wa s not in acco rdance with the FIM Road Racing Technical rules. Whe reas the ma ximum d ien e con tent is limited to 2% (mass/mass) ma ximum, the fuel taken from the gaso line tank of Sligh t's Honda contained 20.3% m/ m d ien e, and the fuel tank of Meklau's Ducati contained fuel with a total d iene content of 10.6% m/m. The riders were still given the opportunity to have a counter-test carried out, but neither team used the option. "Elf has already replied that someth ing went wrong in the communication be tw een th e FIM and them," Castrol Ho nda's te am manager Neil Tuxworth explained. "Actually, Elf had not received the full specification sheet for this year's fuel that is allowed. The FIM has suggested we do a counter-test, but Elf has already admitted that the FIM figures are correct and that it would be just a waste of time testing the fuel again." Tuxworth said that Honda had used the fuel supplied by Elf in good faith, and did not use any additives to better performance. He also expla ined why the fuel in Slight's bike differed from that used by Meklau. "During win ter testing, we tried all the d ifferent racing fuels made av ailable by, Elf, and we ha d the best results with wha t now turns out to be the highest amount of diene. To be quite hones t, I had never heard about this product before..." • Neither had most of the paddock, but it seems that diene is what binds oxygen to the fuel molecules; the more of it you have, the better performance you get. Whether or not this extra "boost" was enough to help Sligh t get such good results in Donington will remain a mys tery . With roughly 70% of the field using Elf products, it. . seems that any of them could have been using the illegal fuel. The French petrol company sen t a tru ck to the Misano track, allowing all their customers to exchange their "illegal" fuel for "legal" fuel. During th e mon th of June, FIM will judge the case. At first glance, it seems unreasonable to conde mn only two rid ers for using the fuel most su perbike competitors are using. In addition, it is very hard to know the exact composition of racing fuel - especially for people who alread y have enough on their minds. S

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