Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.R A RACE OD .W C orld hampionship Road Race Series Round 2: IndonesianGrand Prix (Lelt) Michael Doohan (1) leads the way in the Inaugural Indonesian 500cc Grand Prix In Sentul. (Below) Doohan scored the 27th win of his career alter a race-long battle with Brazilian Alex Barros. Afte r Bayle came his teammate Abe, the Japanese rider never on the gas and very nearly losing th e spot to Puig on the final lap , the difference being 0.041 second. Th e 250cc rac e w as a simila r scrap, th ough th er e w a s the occasio nal lead change. Marlboro Rainey Yamaha 's Tetsuya Harada and Chester field Aprilia's Max Biaggi took o ff a t th e start at an unassailable rate. Harada was in front most of the tim e, thou gh Biaggi would make the occasional run and pass, only to almost instantly drop back. Officially, Biaggi led the 12th and 21st laps, though he,was never far back and looked ready to lea d at any time . Appearances proved deceiving and Harada wa s ab le to take the race in hand wi th the fortu itous u se of a backm arker on the final lap, to win his first race in nearly a year. "My tactics wer e s traigh tfor ward . I got in front of Max (Biaggi) 'at the star t and 1 did everyt h ing I co u ld to stay there, because I thought he might be able to make a break if he got ahe ad of me," Harada said . "I wanted to run the ra c~ at m y own pace, not h is, and that' s the way it worked ou t." For his pa rt, Biaggi wasn't wi lling to blam e the backm arker, his fellow countryman Gianlui gi Scalvi ni, for the out come of the race. "1 think Scalvini doesn't trouble me," Biaggi said . "It was very difficult to pass out with a melted piston on the NSRSOO • V-twin w h ile running in third place. Th at mad e th e ord er of th e top 10 Doohan, Barros, Marlboro Rainey Yamaha' s Loris Capir ossi, Repsol Hond a ' s Alex Criville, Fortuna Honda Pons ' Carles Checa, Cadal ora, Lucky Strike Suzuki's Scott Ru s sell , Marlboro Rob erts Yam aha's Jean-Michel Bayle and Norifum i Abe, a n d Fortuna Hond a Pon s ' Albe rto Puig. Nothing would cha nge to the end, though there was potential. Capirossi ran near the leaders early be fore front tire problems slowed him in the late going. Tha t made him vulnerable to attack from Criville. who'd spent the race holding back Checa and fina lly getting away toward the end. Criville would come up less than a second back of Capirossi. Well behind came Cadalora, mostly alone th e whole race, mostl y sore an d s li d i ng aro u n d wi th a machi ne th at wasn' t tractable. . Russe ll was next, neither front or rear tire giv in g hi m ' much confi de nce, then engine noises spooking him midrace on a track he .never came to grips with. He had to back off and Bayle made a run, but the 31-year-old Geor gian was waiting and ready an d put a few second s between him and the Frenchman at the end. Harada the last few laps. Maybe his tire had better grip. Maybe the Michelin was better at that distance than my tire . All the time I was sliding my rear tire, so I decided to finish the race." Third place, alone and unchallenged mo st of the way, was the recoverin g Ralf Waldma nn o f th e HB Hond a team . Wald mann was in his first race since a test injury and felt that his finish was the best he could have hoped for. "Two weeks after breaking my collarbon e in that test crash in Malaysia, this third place is like a victory for me. Dur ing the last lap I was crying because 1 was so hap py," the 29-year-old German said. Harada won the 28 lap, 69-mi le race in 42 minutes, 13.486 secon ds at an ave rage speed of 98.03 m ph. After swapping first and second the first two races, Harada and Biaggi are tied in po ints at 45. MX Onda-SSP Competition 's Luis d ' Antin, fourth today, is third at 29. , , Like th e two race s th at it prece ded, the 125cc race w a s a tw o-ri d er a ffair. down from four in the earl y going. Once attrition had thinned the field it was up to Team Ditter Pla stic' s Masaki Tokudo me an d Rheo s Molenaar Racing's H aruchika Aoki to decide the winner, and then on ly on the final lap . IN T E R NATI ONAL CIR C U ,T By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose SENTUL, INDONESIA, APR. 7 id ing like the tw o-time defending World Champion that he is, Repso l H on d a ' s Mi chael Doohan assume d his p roper spo t on the top step of the podium at the sweltering ina ugural Ind onesian Gra nd Prix, his lavish trophy ha nded to him by no ne other than the p resident of the country . After a hiccup "of a race in Malaysia , where he suffered tire troubl e and embarrassment at the hands of first the new V-twin Hon da, then the private Ho nda of Luca Cadalora, Doohan was back on form, riding a calculated race tha t wore out the opposition when it counted mos t - at the very end. Doohan 's number one is in the first position on every lap of the lap chart, but what the chart d oesn't say is that he was doing it under severe duress. Brazilian Alex Barros, resurgent on the 1995 Pileri Hon da, kept the heat on the entire race un til hitting traffic with just a few' lap s to go. Up to that point he'd held a cons tant gap from Doohan of less than a second an d appeared ready to po u nce. Dooh an, as usua l, was flawless , and by turning three of his fastest laps over the la st four was ab le to colle ct hi s 27th career win before a crowd of 50,000. "The first 10 laps I was actually trying to look at the pit board s to see who wa s behind me,", Dooha n said, following the \0 trophy p rese ntation where he w as con~ gratulated by Presiden t Soeharto. "And I ,...... knew from practice and qualifyin g that Alex (Barros) was abo ut the most consistent gu y out there. I coul d see hi s lap ..- board all the time and I could see his times and the y were matching min e, and 0.. I jus t tried to keep as much of a bu ffer as ~ I could without him coming by me until the last 10 laps. Then we got up to a bit of traffic late in the race and it went up R ..... ... 6 to poi n t zero, so I de cided for the last few lap s I better pull my finger out and go for it. That was my pla n from the start - to make a br eak for it, and if I couldn't make a break for it I'd ru n the pace of the guy behind me until it got to a critical point in the race where I felt that by making a br eak I could make it stick." . That he was ab le to keep Doohan we ll in sight, and mount a sig nifica nt challen ge, sa id a lo t abo u t Bar ros. After a ye a r of s truggle on th e Kan emoto Hon da, Barros joined the Pileri Honda team with the same 1995 machin ery that h e rod e las t year. Ju dging fro m th e resu lts the past two weeks, there doesn't seem to be a lot of d ifference in the gear. "All weekend I've tried to be consi stent," Barros said. "1 made a good start and tried to follow Mick (Dooh an ), whil e saving my tires for the end of the race. I tried to put him under pressure, but I ' think my rear tire spun on the rim and from then on 1 was getting a lot of rearwheel chatter. Mick was very consistent, . he made it very hard for me. It's great to be lea d ing the World Champ ionship after two bad seasons." By finishing second in the opening tw o ro unds, Barros becomes th e fir st Bra zilian ever to lead a roa~ ra ci ng World Championship. His 40 points are fo ur b e tt e r t han Dooh ans, wi th Kanemoto Ho nda's Luca Cadalora third at 35. Cada lora finished sixth today on a machi ne that di dn ' t feel right , and with a sore neck . , The margin of victory for Doohan at the end of the 30-lap, 73.92-mile race was 3.227 seconds, thou gh as late as the 27th it was less than a second. Doohan comple ted the race in 43 minutes, 50.798 seconds at an average sp eed of 10 1.147 mph. There wasn't mu ch drama in the top 10, and the order did n't change one spot after the fourth lap . That's wh en Repsol Honda's Tadayuki O kada was forced

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