Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 3: Japan eG dP es ran rix Abe (cent er) shares the 500cc podium with Criv ille (left) and Russell (right). Rookie fever TI e Suzu ka front row broke the mold . Not only were there four differen t typ es of motorcycle up front, bu t three out of . four rid ers wer e class rookies, one of them preparing for his first-ever Grand Prix starl. And defending Wor ld Champion Michael Doohan was off the front row for the first time in 30 races. Pole wen t to soft-spoken Span iard Alex Criville. who admitted he'd done the time whil e follow ing Doohan. "My bike is also going very fast," he said; his hand inju ry from Mala ysia now almos t fully healed. "But tomorr ow I do not expect to be able to lead too easily." , Quite 50, consi deri ng the close ness ag ain of times in thi s stro ng SOOcc year - eight riders within the same second, the othe rs not mu ch adri ft at a lon g circuit with a lap time of more than two minutes . There were two d istinct phases of pra ctice - d ay one, in the stream ing w et, when returned injury vic tim Dary l Beatti e claimed fastest time, rather to h is surp rise, displacing longtim e session leader Jean-Michel Bayle, and there were more accidents than you could shake a stick at. In all thr ee classes, 32 peop le fell down - eight in the SOOcc class, including Scott Russell, Carles Checa, Alber to Puig, Norifumi Abe, Loris Capirossi and Takumi Aoki. There were many su rprises. One sens ation of both the we t and d ry sessions was Dorian o Romb oni on the Aprilia, his second-fas test time the best-ever gri d position for the 410cc V-rwin, "There are two long straighis here and I am slower than the Vfours," he sai d . "Bu t on the mi xed part s of the circuit I gain more time than I lose on the straights ." Since the straights are at the end of the lap, the re was a question about whether he could retain any lead he'd gained earlier on. "The Ho nda an d Suzu ki are too fast, but I can stay in the slipstream of the Yamaha," he said . "In any case, I am very much faster into the fast left-hander at the end of the main straight." Third wen t to another 1995 250cc rider Bayle, in only his th ird 500cc class GP and another hero of both da ys. The Yamaha rider was su rp rised, but icy-calm. "The re was no magic," Bayle said. "I'm getting to know the team better, and th ey are starting to u nderstand exactly wha t I need ." He also had followed for .th e u ph ill Dunlop Curve, th e bike stepp ed sideways an d th rew him over the high side . He slammed into the air fence, lucky to escape with only a sma ll fracture in his right hand . Numata tried everything to stay with them, the All-Japan Champion prepared for every risk in his one chance to make an impression for himself and his Suzuki. "I really wa nt to go GP racing ne xt year," he said . He couldn' t match Biag- . gi's pa ce, but easily ou tstripped a fierce fou r-bike battl e for third . Jacq ue, Uk aw a, wild ca r d Da ijiro Kato and regu lar No bu atso Aoki w ere trading blows and places for almost the whole race. By the last lap, Aok i had lost touch , bu t the othe r three were hard at it. Jacque tried too hard, giving Kato his chance at home rost rum glory, but managing to get back in front of Ukawa ove r th e line, the trio covere d by jus t over half-a-second. Yamaha wild card Kensuke Haga had been .with the group in the early stages, but dro pp ed back to han g on to seve nth in a rather processional race where Europeans were hard pressed to stay w ith the locals. Ralf Wal d man n was eighth, best of the rest , and counting him self lu cky to finish after choosing too soft a rear tire. " It was almost in pieces by the finish," the HB Honda rider said . . Then came MX Onda Honda rid er Luis d'Antin, wh o'd been battling with Elf- Chester fie ld Honda man Jean Philippe Ruggia all race lon g, finally prevailing by just over a tenth of a second. Priva te Honda rider Takeshi Tsujimura led the next group of six over the line, the closes t b attl e o f th e race. Wor k s Hond a rid er Ju rgen Fu chs came next, the n Osamo Miyazaki, the H ond as of Regis Laconi and Yasumasa Hatakeyarna and Seb astian Porc o' s Aprilia, the Argentin ean privat eer mis sing a title point by just one-tenth of a second. Jur gen van de n Goorbergh had decided on the so ft rear tire, an d was in a Dooh an .in the mor ning sess ion . "You are sur e to learn somethin g if you do that." The 250cc-class nearly m an is clearly a 500cc-class na tu ral, but de nied that his motocross expe rience wa s worth a nyt hing . "Eve n with the wheelsp in and stee ring with the rear, it is so.different riding a bike on tarmac compared with the dirt." he insisted . . The final front-row position wen t to 21-year -old All-Japan superbike rider Katsuaki Fujiwara, a wild card for the race. It was a mighty impressive showing for the man who took over Beattie's bike in Malaysia, only to crash for the same reaso n, a high-speed seize. He usually rides a Suzuki factory superbike, and though he was ada pting well, he adm itted he was ph ysically tired . " It' s 50 fast, it's like trying to tame a wild hor se," he said. There wa s another significance to all this . On ly two bikes in the 500cc class had Dunlop tires - Romboni and Fujiwara . Both were on the front row. With second wild card (an d las t yea r's ros tru m fini sh er) Takumi Aoki fif th, and Ca pirossi six th, picking up speed th rou gh ou t the second d ay, Dooh an ended up an ang ry seventh. He'd also inadve rtently shown Aoki th e fast lines. "I' m like a tow-tru ck out there," he said, after being balked at his last attempt at a fast time at the end of the session, and amusing TV wa tchers by wa iting for Aoki to make obscene hand-gestures to him , suggesting an excess of self-abuse . "Why d oes everybody follow me?" he fum ed. "You never win races by follow ing other people." Tadayuk i Okada was eighth, close bu t lower than expected, after topping the table early in the final session. He'd had trou ble both with suspension and transmission. "Better tod ay than tomorrow. I think I can be on the podi um ," he sai d, ad di ng: "The Ho nda is faster th an Rombon r's Ap rilia, but he has improved a lot." Poin ts leader Alex Barr os led row th ree, unworried because his times had been consis tent "and a lot of faster peopl e just did one fast lap." Then came Russell, disappointed not to be higher ' at the track where he 'd hoped to meet hi s always- high targets, and looking wistfully across the Suzuki pit at Fujiwa ra's Dunlops, his person al tires of choice. "The Michelins have such a lot of grip , and I can't slide the bike like I want to," he said . Then came Abe, picking up in th e final session; and Luca Cad alo ra, very dou r, and stri cken wi th front-end problems. "We can 't find a good base setting, but we have some more th ings to try tomorrow." He wa s expec ted to be a real threa t strong 12th and starting to battl e with Yamaha-mounted wil d card Koiji Nanba when it all went wrong . "Everythi ng was per fect, and I was h opi n g to get to th e top 10," va n den Goorbergh said. "Then I felt the motor tighten up, and I ha d to back off to try an d nu rse it to the fini sh . On the ne xt lap, it seized at the end of the straight. We still don' t know wh y." But with his nearest privat eer IRTA cup rival Luca Boscoscuro a ls o fa i ling to score, h e reta ined his slen der lead in the privateer points. . 125cc GRAND PRIX Toku dome led the early laps after disposing of fast-start er Peter Oettl, whose rapid Aprilia lasted just eigh t laps before losing compression . Then his loS-second lead was slashed to noth ing in two lap s as a flyin g Kazu to Saka ta and his Aprilia scy the d th ro u gh a m assiv e grou p in a desperate bi d for glory, t he n pu lled th em wi th h im in a desp er at e bid for glory. Sakata slashed a massive 1.75 seconds off h is own lap record , bu t he'd pu shed his Krona Aprilia too hard , an d he too rattl ed to a heartb rok en stop. T he n d efen ding World Champ io n Harachuki Aoki showed his brilliant tactics by eme rging from the group to lead for th e first time on the 17th of the 18 laps . Inches beh ind him, Akira Saitoh and Mala ysian GP winner Stefano Perugini touch ed in the first corner of the last lap, with th e Jap an ese ride r batted o ff to crash in the gravel tr ap . Th e group had d ropp ed fr om 10stro ng to just four as they braked for the ch icane, Aoki in front. But he wa s too fast, running w ide and taking Ued a with him into the d irt. Perugini slammed on th e brake s behin d th em , only to slide and high-side out, while Toku do me was free to win at his leisure. "Ao ki doesn't usually make mistakes, so I feel lucky to win. And very proud," he said . Aoki recovered to hang on to second, here - his 1994 pole position time remains the fastest-ever lap at Suzuka, Kenny Roberts Jr. was impressive in his first-ever 500 race, leading row four from Itch 's V-twin, top privateer Arakaki, and an off-form Checa, Beattie was way d own in 17th, leadi ng row five, but confident of improving after failing to find a clear track when he tried for his fast time. There were 2Bqualifiers in all. The weather was especiall y crucial for 250cc pole qualifier Tetsuya Harada. He moved firmly to the top in the dry , but was last in the wet, blaming wet-weather Michelins that just didn't do the job in the cold temperatu res . His Yama ha was 6 mph down on Max Biaggi' 5 Aprilia, but once the track wa s warm enough for his tires to grip, he was able to say: "The Yamaha's mai n advantage is in the chassis, but I am not happy wi th the settings. The bike does not feel comfortable." He expec ted a close race, a nd rightl y 50, with Biaggi less than one-hundredth slowe r, and balked on his last lap when he might easily have claimed pole. "I still have some chassis problems. The front wheel is chattering badly." Third went to the best of the usu al hot lot of wild cards; lone Suzuki rider Noriyasu Numata, who had been fastest in the wet also until displaced in th e closin g m inu tes by a wil d-rid ing Jean-Philippe Ruggia. Numata is de fend ing All-Japan champi on, but said, "My aim is to GP racing next year, 50 I will risk everything for a good result ." The extra speed of the top thr ee meant that times were mu ch m or e wi d el y sp read than in th e 500cc cla ss, alt ho ug h th e remaining grid positions were closely contested , with fourth to 14th plac es covered by a on e-second difference. Oliver Jacque go t th e last fro n t-row positi on, top Hond a and almost threequart ers of a second do w n on Harada, and rather surp rised to , be there in only his second visit to the track, much of which 'time was in streaming wet conditions. "The fro n t end is very nervou s an d t he p ow er is m or e vicious than I would like," Jacque said. "I'm worried about the race because the instability gets worse as the tires wea r." The usual pack of fast Jap an ese riders (four Wil d Card entries here) were among the regulars. Daijiro Kato on a Honda na rr ow ly led row two from fellow wild card Kyoji Na nba , Yamaha's 500-class test rider for once on a YZR250. Then came Ralf Waldma nn, preven ted from moving ahead by electronic problems tha t spoiled his fina l session, and GP rookie Tohru Ukawa wa s next. •

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