Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Mertens right with them as they swapped back and forth. On the last lap, with Briguet narrowly but su fficien tly ahead to sta y there to the end, Zeelenberg made another bid at the same track where he won his only 250cc GP. He got past Mark , bu t couldn' t quite d o the same to Mertens, who se cu red second by two tenths, Beattie now leads the title chase by 29 points, on 99 points to Doohan's 70. Puig has 67, Cadalora 66 and Criville 61. 250Cc GRAND PRIX Biaggi said before the race that his first visit to the Nurburgring reminded him of Shah Alam, His pre-race threat s proved well-founded. He got a fine start, led into the first corn er, then pulled majestically away as he did in Malaysia . He set the fastest lap of the race on the second lap, and d idn't let up until the 18th, by which time he was 12 seconds clear. The drama now came purely from the sto pwatches as the ga p started to shrink though it was imposs ible to tell whether Biaggi was easing back or really in trouble. He started the last lap with the cushion shrunk to four seconds, and finished w it h it below two , And afterward he explained. " I chose very soft tires so as to get away early on, but that d estroyed my rear. It was slid ing badl y and by the end it was ruined." .The race for second was only slightly . mor e even tful Top French privateer Oli vier Jacque made a flyer from the third row to seize seco nd, helping Biaggi break away as he delayed Harada and Waldmann. It took them until the third lap to pile past 'the RS Honda one after the other, and Biaggi's slipstream was now a d istant dream. Waldmann didn't last much lon ger. On the next lap he pushed too hard on the troublesome slip pery hairpin at the bottom of,the hill, slid, and slip ped off the low side. N ow Hara da was alone, unthreatened from behi nd , unable to do more tha n keep pushin g to keep Biaggi at leas t vagu ely in sigh t. , It was the battle for third that kept the race alive. As risin g star Jacq ue faded , blaming tir es rath er than the expected lack of horsepower from his non-wo rks Honda, Ru ggia a nd Rob e rts went off toge ther with Okada and Bayle soon to close up behind. At first Roberts seemed to have the better of it. Ruggia wou ld immedi ately res pond to every overtaking move, getting back at the next corn er most times, but he was looking the mo re ragged. But th ey were slowing each other, and the other pair caught up on lap 17, just as Roberts missed his braking point for the chicane (he later said' he'd been foxed by the lack of wind resistance in Ruggia's draft) and ran into th e dirt, rejoini ng between Okada and Bayle. They swapped back and forth, and they started the last lap Ruggia, Roberts , Okada, Bayle, with the young American diving ahead down the hill. Okada was the clever one. "I passed Ruggia up the hill, then Roberts was slowed behind a backmarker on the back straight," he sa id . "I pa ssed him going into the chicane." Ruggia's defeat had anoth er dimension - fog gin g problems had forced him to ride with his visor ajar, and his eyes were watering bad ly. Thus they finished Okada, Roberts, Ruggia, Bayle, the group covered by just over one second . Another grou p had been scra p pi ng behind, with the closing-laps scra mble seeing Carles Checa's Fortuna Honda just pipping Nobuatso Aoki's Blumex Honda and d 'Antin's MX'Onda Honda. Just off the back after tangling with backmarkers came Aprilia test rider Marcellino Lucchi in ten th. Jacque was 11th, with Jurgen vdGoorbergh 12 th , well clear o f his brother Patrick and Docs hop Aprilia teammate Niall Mackenzie, with second Maxell Honda rider Sadunori Hikita taking 15th and the last title point after dropping back at the finish. SIDECAR GRAND PRIX There were 22 finishers. Biaggi's win put him on 93 points, five behind Harada. Waldmann is third on 74, with Aoki on 56 and Okada and Ruggia equal in fifth overall on 42. 125cc GRA ND PRIX The u sual brawl enli ve ned th e first half of the race, with fou r differen t lead ers over the line in tha t time, and a few others elsewhere on the track as the y ran into corners thr ee and four abreas t. Well up am ong them was Kazuto Saka ta, but the works Aprilia rider slipped off on the 11th lap, rejoin ing in 13th p lace only to crash again at the finish after wo rking his way back up to seventh. Th at p lace eventually wen t to new Honda sta r Tomomi Manako, who also slid off ou t of the fron t gro up, remounting to force his way through from 13th. With five laps to go, there we re still .fou r of them tooth an d nail wi th Ueda leadi ng narrowly from 'Aoki, Alzamo ra and Honda-mounted Akira Saito. Then , Saito had th e crash of the weekend . Flicked out of the sadd le at the tight chicane, he landed face down across the fuel tank with both leg s on one side of the bike. He was still goi ng, and fought to regain control. But the bike turned inexorably left, and eventually deposited the heartbroken rider in the gravel. Veda was in front from laps 16 to 22, riding his bucking Honda on the very limit. But Aoki was bidin g his time, and on the last lap pulled out all the stops to sweep into the lead. He was seven tenths ahead o f Ueda at th e finish , with Alzamora left almost 1.5 seconds behind in the final dash. Perugini was fourth, short of power after a last-minute change to a sp a re eng in e for hi s Aprilia; Dirk Raud ie s, injured in practice, rode a steady race to bring the HB Honda home fifth . Then ca me Nakajoh's Honda and Manfred Geissler's Apri lia. Aoki's fourth win gives him a massive 47-point lead, with 100 points to Perugini's 53. Then Saka ta has 49, Alzamora 47 and Ueda44. THUNDERBIKE TROPHY Swiss rider Yves Briguet won his second successive Thunderbike race at the head of a close four-bike battle that lasted almost from the first lap to the last. Eustaquio Gavira led the first lap, bu t dropped away with brake problems as Udo Mark (Kawasaki), Stephane Mertens (Honda) and Wilco Zeelenberg (Honda) moved up front to dispute the lead. Zeelenberg led once or twice, but never across the line, with Mark and Brigue t making ~ost of the running, and (Abo ve) Luca Cadalora (2) got the bette r of Shinic,/li Itoh (7) in the ir hectic battle for seco nd place . (Bel ow) Span iard Alex e riv ille bou nced back from thi s practice cra sh to finish fourth in the SOOcc Grand Pri x at th e Nurburgri ng. Saturday' s sideca r race sa w w ild ly cha ng ing fo rtu n es, ma in ly connect ed with a series of terminal bangs from the BRM motor users (BRM is the new nam e for Swissauto). The first to 'fail, on the first lap , was that of the Wyssen brothers, the last and possibly most significan t belonged to the Guedel brothers, wh o wer e leading the race at the time with only three laps left, and had already set the fastest lap. Or sho u ld more significance be attached to the failure of Biland's motor, with multiple champion Biland among the leaders and lo ok ing th reatening when it happened on lap 13. Th e Guedel's retirement handed the lead to Briton Steve Abbo tt, but Darren Dixon was close behind, and pegged him down for a thrilling last- lap outbra king move that ga ve him and passenger Andy Hetherington vict ory by th ree slender ten ths.

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