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·. R OAD R C A E.···.· . :W Championship Road Race Series .: Round 6: ItalianGrand Prix orld By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose LO 0\ 0\ ..... 20 MUGELLO, ITALY. JUN. 11 epsol Honda's Mick Doohan survived an early-race mistake before going on to win hi s third Grand Prix of the year on a cloudy bright d ay at the Mugello Autodromo. The win ended a disastrous streak of DNFs suffered in the two prior rounds and put the Australian on the road back to another title. After taking the lead from the start, the World Champion made a mistake on the brakes and overshot the second turn, running to the edge of the track and letting world championship leader Daryl Beattie past. "The problem wa s that the front wheel was in the air when I wanted to go into that comer," Doohan said. "I went into the first turn slower to get a good drive so I could get a good run and get away from the other guys. The rear tire was spinning up the hill, which was no problem, but then the front wheel went skyward and by the time it was back on the ground I was past where I wanted to be to get into the corner. I was lucky to brush off speed before I ran off the track." Doohan regained his composure and then tried to find Beattie's limit, running a series of fast laps ending in the race's fastest lap on the eighth while in pursuit. He passed Beattie on the ninth, had the lead for good. an d went on to win the Italian Grand Prix by 3.728 seconds in front of a crowd of 30,000. "I was kicking myself for the rest of the race, wondering what it's going to take to complete a Grand Prix wi thout ge tting to check if the grass is wet," Doohan added. He completed the 23-lap, 74.8-mile race in 44 minutes, 20.790 seconds, at an average speed of 101.423 mph. Lucky Strike Suzuki's Beattie tried to stick with Doohan to the end, denying speculation that he was going for a safe finish up in the points. "If it was possible to try to beat Mick I would have," Beattie said. "I rode as hard as I could right up to the last lap. As Mick said, he went at a pace that I couldn't do and if I went any faster I would go slower." Doohan chipped five points off Beattie's championship lead and, after six of 14 races, trails by 24 points, 119 to 95. Third in the points - and on the day is Spaniard Alberto Puig of the Fortuna Honda Pons team. Puig began the race battling with Beattie for second, then dropped back to third where he had to fend off Repsol Honda's Shinichi Itoh. But Itoh found that he'd gone wit h too soft a tire and when Puig came by at the halfw ay point he had nothin g to fight back with and finished fourth. Daryl BeattIe (4) w'-lles off the line tc start the italian500ccGrand Prix at lIugello. Race winner Michael Doohan (1) also drops the hammer.