Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. ' .. Round 6: German Grand Prix Max Blaggl (4) leads the horde of 250cc riders Into the first comer during the 250cc German Grand Prix. The race was won by loris Caplross l (2) over Blaggl and Dorlano Rombonl(4). because I've had a bad fever for the last three days and he helped get me ready for the race," Capirossi said. "Today's victory was very importan t for th e _ champions hip becau se we thought the Ap rilia's top-speed advantage would cause us problems here and at the Salzburgring. and we won both races ." As ev idence of the bike's su periority, Capirossi set a new track record on the last lap. Biaggi said that he knew that the Hondas could use his slipstream. "That's n ormal," he said. But he had trouble under heavy braking and said the team needed to make improvements. t's not so mu ch the top speedof the Hondas tha t gives them an unmatchable advantage at Hockenheim as it is their ability to get there. Top speed numbers taken from just before the first chicane, in the middle of the first oftwo long straightaways,showed Hondas first to fourth, though they didn't come close to breaking the magic 200 mph barrier tha t Shinichi Itoh broke last year. Instead, this year it was World Championship leader Mick Doohan with the fastest bike; a top speed of 196.74 mph helping propel the Team HRC Aussie to the pole position. What had helped Doohan achieve the mark was knowledge gained from a special test held her e last month to determine tire safety . The Honda, Yamaha, and Cagiva teams took part, but Suzuki chose to stay on and test at Jerez. The test gained more importance when much of free practice and half of one qualifying session were rained out. "The weather conditions here have caught a few people out, especially the Suzuki guys, Kevin (Schwantz) and Alex (Barros). Because we tested here, we've got the bike set up so we know what tires work," Doohan said. Doohan readily admitted that the Honda was fast on top end, bu t added that "it goes around corners as well. The bike has a top-speed ad van tage and this is the kind of circuit that can use it:' Last year Doohan's rear tire came apart while he was leading the race, and the test allowed him to run a full race distance on a harder compound tire made specifically for Hockenheim, " "With our best tire we did one complete race distance and several half races," Doohan said. "We actually tried to blow the tire apart. The tire definitely doesn't have much feel for me on the left. The left-handers are a bit icier at the moment." The 4.223-milelong. thumb-shaped Hockenheim circuit is, basically, mad e up of very few elements. There are the two l ong straights, interrupted by chicanes, and joined at the far.end by the imposing Ostkurve, a blind ingly fast right-hander d on e full lean. After the second chicane there's a run to the stadium section, and the long. sweeping Sachs Curve, about the only part of the track where the left side of the tire is taxed. From there comes a straight with a kink, a double-right, then the run to the flag. Doohan' was f~st, not only on the stra~ghts but I 20 Romboni didn't want to discu ss what happened in the final bends, saying he would "leave it to people who saw what happened on TV to judge for themselves who was right and who was wrong . I prefer to answer this question in the next race." Aoki finished ahead of h is fellow countryman, who said tha t he was losing the drafting battle. " Aoki kept coming ou t of my slipstream as we approached the chicanes but his entry speed was very slow and this hurt my corner exit speed. We lost the leaders slipstream because of this and I had no chance to catch them again, " Okada said. Waldmann got the better of the battle for si xth, taking over the spo t and holding onto it from the si xth lap onwards. Harada and Ruggia would make runs at him , but th e German was alw ays first across the line, where it matt ered . "My bike ran like a rocket. It was so supreme that I played the locomotive for the others early on. Without the inci dent, I'd certainly (have) kept the pace of the fastest," Waldmann said. World Champion Harada equalled his season's best result, a seventh place, by passin g Ruggia on the last lap and setting out for Waldmann. " I d id, in fact , think I could take sixth place from Waldmann on the last la p ," Har ada sa id . "Th r ou ghou t the race I was faster through the last cor ner than he wa s, but on the final on e h e fou nd a little more s p eed and I faile d to ge t by him." Harada add ed that he was still troubled by the right ha nd which he broke in the season's opening race. Rugg ia settled for e ig h t h, his engine not as strong as i t had been through the stadium as well, and finished Friday's first session two seconds bett er than Schwantz. Both go t faster on Saturday, though Doohan 's 1:58.943 was nearly a second better than Schwantz's best. "We got caught out in the rain in the first practice yesterday afternoon and didn't get the dry time we needed," Schwantz said. "Having only one-and-a-half hours dry time instead of four cost us a little." The World Champion said that his best lap time was clocked while following the Honda of Alex Criville, and he said he was pleased he could stay with him on the straights. "It was just one fast lap, bu t I can race at that pace. I guess that's what we're going to have to do if I'm to race with Doohan," Schwantz said. Thir d fastest was yet another Ho nda, this the Ducados Pons entry of Spaniard Alberto Puig. It was only his sixth 500cc GP, bu t the secon d time that he was third fastest, and he'd been the fastest rider in the rain. Like Doohan, he made no bones about the reason for his success. " If you don't have a fast bike, it's not so easy," Puig said. The end of the fro nt row belonged to Schwantz' s teammate, Alex Barros. His was the faster of the two Suzukis on top end, though still behind the factory Cagivas. And like Schwantz, he needed a tow from a Honda to make his best lap. "I followed Puig's Honda for several laps at the end, when I got my best time, and I was really happy to see that this year the Suzu ki can stay in touch with the Hondas, where last year we were losing ground to them on the long str aight s her e," Barros said. Team HRC's Shinichi Itoh led off the second row, just in front of teamm ate Alex Criville, who went better here during testing and was looking to regain his form . "Things aren ' t so bad, but they could be bet te r, because I was a second fas ter during th e IRTA tests here," said Criville. "I'm not sure why, maybe it's me, or maybe it's because the track is colder, or perhaps it's the top-end carburetion which isn't so good. The bike's not as fast as it has been and that's our biggest problem." Itch's biggest problem was with gra vity, the Japanese rider sliding off in both the we t and the dry, though mostly without injury. Marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha's Luca Ca da lora wasn't as lucky . Tho ugh hewas able to qualify seventh fastest, the Italian had high-sided in the first of the dou- during practice. He said he nearl y took out Waldmann late in the race, and tha t by avo id ing him let Ha rada by as well. Repsol-MX Onda-Pepsi's Luis D'Antin got the upper hand on the battle for ninth, with Zeelenberg 10th in front of Cheste rfi eld Aprilia 's Jean-Michel Bayle. ex Hockenheimring Hockenheim, Germany Results: June 12, 1994 12Scc Q UALIFYI NG : 1. Nobo r u Ued a (2:19.260108.858 mph ); 2. Dirk Raud ies (2:19.410); 3. Fau st o C re si n i (2:19 .87 7) ; 4. Ol iv er Petrucci a n i (2:20.63 1); 5 . E. Cup pi ni (2:2 1.246); 6. Ak ira Sa ito (2:21.440 ); 7. Takeshi Tsu jim ur a (2:21.483); 8. Stefan Ku rfiss (2:21.607); 9. Peter oau (2:21.719); 10. Oliver Koch (2:21.754); 11. Stefano Perugini (2:21.818); 12. Jorge Ma rt inez (2:21.832); 13. Loe k Bod elier (2:22.254); 14. Yos hi ak i Ka toh (2:22.4 43) ; 15. Masaki To k udom e (2:22.664); 16. Kazuto Sakatt (2:22 .688); 17. Frederic Petit (2:22.921); 18. Hideyuki Naka jyo (2:23.250); 19. Bruno Casano va (2:23.165); 20. T. Manakc (2:24.073); 21. Stefan Prein (2:243 14); 22. M. Stief (2:24570) ; 23. Garry McCoy (2:24.752); 24. Carlos Gi ro (2:24.900); 25. Hans Spaan (2:25.848); 26. Emili A lz a mo ra (2:26.090); 27. Neil . Hod gson (2:26.489); 28 . Man fred Glossier (2:26.720 ); 29. N. Dussa uge (2:27.076); 30. Gab riele Debbia (2:27.254); 31. He rd Torrontegu i (2:27.520); 32. Vittorio Lopez (2:27.639): 33. Manfred Baumann (2:28.328); 34. Lucio Cecchinello (2:29337); 35. R Van Etten (2:30.724~ 2S0cc QUALIFYING: 1. loris Capi ro ss i (2.'04.853/121.420 mph ); 2. Doriano Romboni (2.'04.468); 3. Max Biaggi (2.'05.670): 4. Taday uki Oka da (2.'05.786); 5. Roll! Waldmann (2:06.302); 6. J.P. Ruggia (2:06.782); 7. Nobuatsu Aoki (2:06.8% ); 8. Luis D'Antin (2:07.670); 9. Tetsu ya Harada (2:07.789 ); 10. Jean-Michel Bay le (2:07.816); 11. Andy Pre ini ng (2:08.312); 12. Bernard Kassner (2:08.723); 13. Wilco Zeelenberg (2.-08.992); 14. Ari Sttd ler (2:09.1 47); 15. P.V.D. Gomberg (2:09.250); 16. T osh ih iko H onma (2:09 .398); 17. J.V . D G oo rb e r g (2.:09.508); 18. Carles Checa (2:10.082); 19. Eskil Suter (2:10.178); 20. Alessa nd ro Gram ign i (2:10.8%); 21. C. Boudinor (2:11.067); 22. Adrien Bosshard (2:11.277) 23. ; Noe l Ferro (2;11.351); 24. Luis Maurel (2:1l.488); 25. Giuseppe Fiorillo (2:11.538); 26. J. Fuchs (2:11.835); 27. Fred e ric Pr ot at (2:13.50 4); 28. Manu el H ernand ez (2:14 .106); 29 . Kri stian Kaa s (2:14 .486); 30. Alan Patterso n (2:15.609); 31. Jose Luis Cardoso (2:15.626); 32. Rodney Fee (2:15 .863 ); 33. P. Kolle r (2:16.568 ); 34. Enrique De Juan (2:17306 ). SOOa: QUALIFYING : 1. Michael Doohan (1:58.948); ble rights onto the front straight, deeply lacerating his right hand. Nothing was broken in the hand, but the cut requi red stitches and Cada lora was out of the race. Next best, at the end of the second row, was Cag iva's Doug Chandler, looking for a way to keep both ends on the ground. . "Some of the comers are so long here and you're on the gas for so long that the back end keeps going down and down until the front is waving around," Chand ler said . 'This afternoon we sorted the front out. That had been too soft and the bike was d iving too quickly into the turns, to the point where it was startin g to push." The third row was a mixture of bikes and riders, with Marlboro Roberts Yamaha's Daryl Beattie lining up next to Cagiva's John Kocinski, Apri lia's RSV-400-mounted Loris Reggiani, and Slick 50 Team 's Niall Mackenzie. Beattie said that, due to the rain, the team ran out of time in the search for a dry setting, though he preferred the dry to the rain. I Tenth-fastest Kocinski would not make it to the grid on Sunday. He crashed heavily exiting tum one, the bike tossing him up, then spitting him to the ground and landing on top of him. Interval times from the start line to the first chicane showed Doohan a distance of about a mile, six-ten ths-of-a-second faster than Kocinski, and the American was riding a little too hard to try and close the gap. "He said that he got onto the white line," Cagiva team manager Giacomo Agostini said . 'The back slid round, he saved it, but it' went again and threw him very hard. He slapped his hand badly." Kocinski walked away from the spill hold ing his left wrist and was found to have broken the middle finger of his left hand . He rode one lap in Sunday mo rning's warm-up, but pulled in and chose not to compete. He should be ready for the Dutch 'IT at Assen in two weeks ' time. . This would not be the track for the V-twtn Ap rilia, though Loris Reggiani thought the deficit could be lessened by inclement weather. "In fact, snow would be .better," Reggian i said . "Normally I don't like racing in the rain, but I kn ow the situ ation is hope less otherwise, so for the first time in my life I'm pra ying for a wet race: ' Mackenzie suffered two pr actice crashes, one worse than the other, but neither did him any harm. There we re 32 qualifiers for Sunday's 18-lap race, with two riders failing to qualify.

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