Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ROAD RACE . .' W orldE ndurance Championship Series . Roun d1:Le M F ans, rance , e (Left)After 768 laps and over 2000 miles, Jehan d'Orge lx of the winning Kawasaki team celebrates victory at the .24 Hours of Le Mans. (Below) The factory Yamaha of Adrien Morillas, Jean-Marc Deletang (pictured) and Rachel Niccolle finished second. the second hour, when the tires of the leading teams proved not to be up to task. Because of the much higher temperatures during th e rac e than during . the private practic e sessions, th e tires had to be changed at e ac h pit stop, which made the Dunlop users su ch as Kawasaki lose a lo t of time. This, in t turn, all owed the fact orv Su zuki and th e Yamaha of MoriIlas; N icotte and Deletang to get very close ind eed to the I leading Kawasaki. Already dropping back a bit, the first I pri vateer bike had lo st so me more ground when it ran out of fuel. Briguet and his teammates ultim ately had to let th e fact or y Honda of Vieira, Lavieille j and Costes pass to take over fourt h. The i five factory bikes continued to lead the I way, even th ough Nicotte lost so me I tim e in th e gravel p it and his ensuing ) pit stop. ' O ne h ou r late r, th e first major j misha p occurred w hen privateer Steve ) Cava nez crashed his Kawasaki ju st before th e Dunlop chicane. While the medical staff attended to th e stricken riders on the tra ck, th e pace cars went ou t. Takin g ca re o f th e accid en t took about half an hour and allow ed the second -p la ce Su zu ki to close the ga p on th e race-le ad in g Kaw asaki. Wh en the i pa ce cars go t out of the w ay aga in, the 1 Kawa saki once agai n moved to a small • lead over th e Su zu ki, whi le th e other factory bikes followed one lap behi nd. The duel between the green bike and r---~=:~~~------- By Johan Vandekerckho ve e sp it e th e b ig e ffor ts fro m Suzuki and the ir much-h eralde d GSX R750 , as w ell as th e two official Yama ha team s, the lon ely Kaw asaki trio of Piergiorgio Bontempi, Jehan d 'Orgeix and Brian Morri son crossed the line first in the 19th ed ition of the 24 H ours of Le Man s, the World En d u ra nce Ch ampionship sea so n -o pener. It w a s a vi ctory due not only to the fast and consis tent lap times of the three winning ride rs, bu t also to th e prove n re liability o f t h e " o ld " Kaw asaki ZXR750RR an d to some luck at th e tim es when it reall y mattered. Behind th e w inning Kawasaki, a late b attle fo r se co n d place ' was finall y decid ed when the Honda of Alex Vieira, Christian Lavieille and William Cos te s was forced to pit to find t h e cause of a m ysterious vibration. With th is dose of misfor tune that battle wo ul d en d with th e Yamaha team of Adrien Mor rilIas, Jea n-Marc Delat an g and Rachel Nicotte endi ng th e race in the runner-u p position. Tw o spo ts farther back, the de fendi ng world cham p ions hi p team o f Jean-Michel Mattioli, Michel Simeon and Pascal Gu igou finished fifth and first p rivateers. The new Suzu ki GSXR m ad e a big impression d u ring its firs t world endurance r ace, taking p ole position. Mo s t of the b est ti mes were se t on Th ursday, as the weather was col der and the tr ack sprayed with oil during the fina l practice session. Terry Rym er D took p ole, lead in g h is teamm at e Pet er Godd ard - a fir st -timer a t Le Ma ns - only tw otenth s o f a se co n d slo wer. "Too bad I did not have the oppo rtu nity to low e r m y "ti m e und er 1:44," said th e Lon doner, w ho h ad bett er ed his own p ractice record lap time with 1:44.181. " I co uld h a v e d one it on Thursda y already, as some riders had got on my li n e d uring m y fa st e s t lap. Two- or three-tenths of a second better would ha ve been pos sible." Piergiorgi o Bontempi took the official Kawasak i to seco nd-fastest tim e, desp ite some gearbox problems. As a side note, Kawasaki had w orked a lot on the brakes during the w inter, after Jean-Louis Battistini had lost a certain victory in Le Mans las t year when the fron t brake exploded. The thi rd -fastest time was for the Hond a rid ers Vieira, La vieille a n d Costes a fter th ey had solved some elec tro nic prob lems they h ad suffered earlie r in th e the Week. With th e p rivateer teams of Coutelle/ H a gu in /D ob e a n d Yves Bri gu et / Bernard Cazade / Eric Mizera completing the top five, the first official Yamaha was only sixth. Morillas, Deletang and Nicotte lost a lot of time due to hartdling problems tha t were onl y solved when a different Michelin front tire was put on the bike. Th e number-one machine of Team Guignabodet took ninth qualifying time. Of the 61 bikes . that p assed tech insp ection , 56 would take the start on Saturday afternoon. RACE Thi ngs had go ne really well for the Suzuki squa d in thei r world end u rance d ebut, unt il 3 p.m . Sa tu rd ay . At th e moment the flag w ent down and th e ri de rs had com p lete d their sho rt run tow ard their bikes, po le man Rymer flood ed the engine. After one lap Rymer crossed start/ finish in the lat ter ha lf of the field . A t the front of th e pack, Ducati-mounted Ferracci had a brief taste of the lead after a lightning-q uick start, but during the first la p the red bike lost the top spo t to the number-ll Kawasaki of Peirgiorgio Bontem pi. After one hour, Bontem p i was leading w it h Rymer an d M oriIl as in h ot pursuit less than a minute behind. The only bike to run in to any kin d of techn ical diffi culty during the first h ou r w as th e Honda Fr an ce entry, when Vieira wa s force d to pit for a gearshift prob lem. The stop cost a b it m ore tha n a m inute, a nd more th an a h an d ful of po sitions, bu t at least the y were off and running again. .The top positions closed up during ---, I the blue bike continued as the night fell I over the Le Man s circu it . Most o f the ' tim e, the difference w as only some four j minutes. Behind the tw o leaders, everybody seemed reasonably con tent about their positions, w ith Vieira / Lavieille / Costes cruisin g in third a lap down, and followed by the Yamahas of Morillas / . Deletang /Nicotte and Bonoris /Mahe l < Mounier. At 8 p.m ., the 75,000 spectators had one less reason to cheer - Michel . Graziano had to push the Ducati ba ck < to th e p it du e to a broken engine. This promo te d the world cha mpionshi p H onda to six th position, even though so me sma ll ha n dli ng p robl ems ha d made the ride rs Mat tioli, Sim eon an d Gui gou lower the pace. A few m inutes before 10 p. m ., the r p ace car s came ou t aga in aft er a tripl e j cras h, in wh ich Lavieille on the official 01 Honda w as in volved. The tall Fren chman got aw ay scot-free, but lost a lot of time in the pit, w here several parts were replaced on the bike. In all, some 18 minutes were lost an d the Honda dropped 1 back to ninth place in the classification, , some 10 laps behind the leaders. The pace-car interven tion woul d j

• Cover