Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

wa s as good a fin ish as he could have hoped for after a muffed start. "I stalled the eng ine on the line and my first concern was getti ng hit from behind," Schwantz said . "Then I had to push -st ar t the motor again and star t picking my way through without getting mixed up in anybody else' s mistakes. Early on I could ma tch Daryl 's pace: I could see him going into tum ten just as I was coming out of nine. At that stage I thought I might have a chance of catching up . But the ea rly laps were hard on my tires and then the front started pushing and I ha d to ease up. I was in fifth then, and when Alex Barros repassed me I had enou gh to get back in front." Not far bac k wa s Albert o Puig, the Sp ania rd h avin g been passed by Schwantz and Barros much earlier and in no imminent danger of being attacked from behind by Capirossi. Puig was racing for th e fir st tim e aft er off-season su rgery to cor rect a problem wit h his forearms and was happy with the results. Had he not injured himself in qualifying he might have had a better result . Next up, after a gra d ua l fade fro m fifth, was Capiros si. The Italian, making hi s fir st 500 cc star t, had , like Pu ig, cras he d in qualifyi ng bu t he was less bothered . What he learned was that he hadn't set up his bike properly and that was costing him. "Unfortunately, during the race, my bike was badly balan ced right froin the (Left) KennyRoberts Jr. (25) stuffs his Marlboro Rainey Yamaha under PR2 Racing's Jose Luis Cardoso six laps from the end of the 250cc race to claim seventh place. (Above) HB Honda's Ralf Waldmann (center) gives a "Vfor victory" sign after beating Marlboro Team Rainey's Tetsuya Harada (left) and a disappointed world champion, Max Biaggi of the Chesterfield Aprilia team, In the first 250cc GP of the season. Doohan takes 22 nd p -----,--oI-----,--e-----'-------'-_ T here was very little • question that Repsol Honda 's Mi ck Doohan would earn the pole position for his home Grand Prix; the only questions were by how much and o ver whom. It was by 0.651 seconds, a healthy margin to begin the. defense of hi s first world championship, and over fellow Australian Daryl Beattie, the newest Lucky Strike Suzuki member who turned in his best qualifying effort ever. But all was not right with Doohan, who couldn't match John Kocinski's lap record from a year ago, and he was more than a bit vocal about the condition of the race track. Doohan discovered after Frida y's qualifying session that because the 2.44-mile track, just west of Sydney, was so dirty that "it makes it difficult to keep corner speed up. You can't get through the corner as fast as you want. It's the same out there for everyone. It's a shame we have to cope with it. I think the management of the circuit ought to buy some good cleaning devices instead of the council street cleaners that's used for picking up Coke cans." Saturday wasn't much better. "The track 's still very dirty out there, especially if you get off-line. It's hard to keep the bike on line," he said . His redemption was that "I think it's just the Honda's working so well and we found some tires that work exceptionally well ." He explained that because of the way the machinery evolves during the year, the new NSR500 wasn't much different from last year's championship-winning bike. "It seems the acceleration's a little bit better. The power seems smooth. I'm not too concerned with top speed. It's a little more ridable. There was chattering last year and they seemed to have reso lved that. The suspen- sion is the biggest improvement. Everything I'm using is a step forward," he said . Beattie was also taking a step forward, putting a disastrous season with the Marlboro Roberts Yamaha team behind him and starting anew with Suzuki. Though it's his third team in three GP seasons, he's adapted quickly, and teammate Kevin Schwantz's injuries forced him to bear most of the off-season development burden. Last year a similar sit u atio n occurred, but form er Su zuki teamster Alex Barros wasn't up to it and the team never fully recovered. This year the y've started on the right track. "To be honest, things are going a little bit better than I'd expected," said the Queenslander, riding his sixth Australian GP. "We've got a setup for the bike, the only minus point is that the track seems slicker today tharr'it did yesterd ay." Beattie's qualifying time may have been even better, but he got stuck behind traffic on his last flying lap and wasn't able to improve. Still, he was happy to be that close to the pole. "I'm pretty happy. I was going steadily and keeping it on two wheels whil e a lot of the oth er top guys were going down," he said . Ainong them was third-fastest qualifier Luca Cad alo- ' ra. The Marlboro Roberts Yamaha rider was 0.913 seconds behind Beattie and unable to better it after a highside tumble late in the session. He broke a knuckle on the third finger on his left hand and lacerated his left elbow. "I was surprised to crash there," the Italian said. "It's normal to slide throu gh turn three, but the rear end slid away so fast I couldn't save it. It felt like it lifted the front tire off the ground too. Before that, things were going okay. We'd made some chassis changes which I thought were working, but maybe they weren 't." Next to him, at the end of the front row, was his teammate Norifumi Abe in only his fifth GP. The Japanese teenager nearly crashed in the first tum and was as surprised at saving that as he was about where he qualified. His post-qualifying comments sug gested tha t there was more work to be done. "It's very bumpy out there so the suspension makes a big difference and I can now ride the bumps better. We also ran a different rear tire this afternoon wh ich was a big help because it's pretty slippery out there, but I don't think we 'll be able to use that one for the race," Abe said . • A mere 0.186 seconds covered the entire second row, Team Lucky Strike Suzuki's Kevin Schwantz sitting next to a trio of Hondas. Schwantz was still somewhat both- start," Capi rossi said. "I had a suspension problem and this was the reason I wo re the tir es bad ly . If I would have pushed a bit harder on a bike that was no t h andling cor rectly I wo u ld h ave risked a fall and that is something I certainly wanted to avoid on this, my first race on a 500ccbike." Abe settled into ninth on the 18th lap, and then came one of the more interesting battles of the day. It was a contest betw een th e works NSR H ond a of Shinichi Itoh and the Aprilia 400 V-twin of Loris Reggiani. Granted, Itoh was riding with damaged ligaments and mu scles in h is left ha nd, but the race wa s eredby the broken left thumb he'd suffered during preseason testing and had to wear a wrap on his wrist to keep a tendon in place. He said it didn' t bother him when he rode, but he was more than a second. off the pace and looking for answers. He didn't help his cause any by crashing in the Friday qu alifying session, then again in the Sunday morning warmup when an engine failure occurred. "I don 't know if Doohan can keep up his qualifying pace for 30 laps. More likely the pace will be in the 1:31s, so if we speed up a bit, we'll be in touch. If not, there 's still a lot of races left, so if we don 't win this one, we'll look forward to getting the Lucky Strike Suzuki to work better as the season goes on," he said. The next three .fastest Hondas represented various stages of factory involvement. First there was the fullfactory Repsol Honda of Alex Criville, then the Marlboro Pileri Honda of 500cc first-timer Lor is Capirossi, followed by the mostly unsponsored bike of Brazilian Alex Barros. Capirossi experienced his first SOOcc Grand Prix crash during Saturday's qualifying session, but wasn't hurt. The problem was put to a front tire that was too hard and a new suspension setup. In addition to switching from a 250 to a 500, Capirossi went from Dunlop to the less predictable Michelins . "I honestly think that I could hav e improved on yesterday's time, but I spent a lot of today's two pra ctice sessions trying to find the right setup for the new front tire that Michelin asked me to test," he said . The biggest problem for the Kanemoto Honda team of Barros was a lack of preseason testing. Though they shuttled between Malaysia and Australia for three tests, their track time was limited due to rain and there was a lot of experimenting to do at Eastern Creek . Barros was another of the second session crashers, but the team got up to speed in the final stages and the Brazilian was fourth -fastest in the morning warmup. Row three was a mixed bag , the Fortuna Honda-Pons bike of Alberto Puig ninth, fronting Aprilias Loris Reggiani, o n the 400cc V-twin Aprilia, Repsol Honda 's Shinich Itoh, and first privateer, Sean Emmett on the Harri s Yamaha. Puig had crashed in the final qualifying session, suffering an abras ion on a finger on his left hand and losing a fingern ail, but he wa sn't slowed by it . Emmett also crashed and Reggiani had a greater price to pay for not having tested during the winter in Australia. He was down in 10th. Itoh had injured his left hand during testing over the winter and was finding it difficult to operate the controls.

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