Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Above) Luca Cadalora competed in Red Bull livery for the first time, givfng his new sponsor a second-place finish in the SOOcc Grand Prix. (Right) Anthony Gobert (23) leads fellow Australian Troy Corser (11). The former World Superbike riders finished 13th and 12th, respectively. the straight and was trying to break out . of the draft when he ran wide. "I flicked it in, the back end went in and caught and threw me away," Roberts said. Though the bike suffered extensive damage, Roberts wasn't hurt. Nastro Azzurro Aprilia's rising star Valentino Rossi turned the normally competitive 125cc class into a mockery, running away from the halfway point on to notch his third victory of the fourrace-old season. And for emphasis, and a little dig at fellow Italian Max Biaggi (who he's been recently tormenting in the Italian media), the 18-year-old [talian stopped on the track and, along with an Italian flag, was handed an inflatable doll with the name "Claudia Schiffer" written across the back, which he carried during the cool-down lap. The reference is to Biaggi's friendship with supermodel Naomi Campbell. Rossi said Schiffer was his girlfriend. At the start, he was locked into a scrap with Team Airtel-Aspar's Jorge Martinez and Docshop Racing's Masaki Tokudome. He lost the lead on the fourth and sixth laps, then took over for good and began to break away. On the ninth lap he was over a second in front, then two after 11, three after 15, stretching to a maximum of 5.668 on the 18th lap before slowing to acknowledge the crowd and win the 20-lap, 65.18-mile race by 3.311 seconds. Tokudome and Martinez looked set to complete the podium until getting sucked up by a seven-rider fight over fourth. They caught up to the following two with less than two laps to go, running to the flag in a drafting scrum with Martinez getting second by .067 of a second over Marlboro Team Alfa Bieffe's Garry McCoy, who thought he got second until Manako pulled next to him aI!d hit his clutch lever just before the flag. In short order, Team Pileri's Nobby Ueda, Team UGT 3000's Tomomi Manako, UGT 3000's Kazuto Sakata, and Oocshop Racing's Tokudome sped across the line. Second to seventh was covered by .576 of a second. The win puts Rossi a point ahead of Ueda in tbe championship, 75-74. Sakata is third at 59, with Martinez two back. 250cc GRAND PRIX When the third lap ended, there were three Italians at the front and not a one of them was content to finish second. Their riding showed it. Biaggi, making his first appearance in front of his countrymen since switching from the Italian Aprilia to the Japanese Honda, led at the start, then was passed by Aprilia's Capirossi before taking it back a lap later. It went back and forth for two more laps; then Biaggi was out front for the next 10. Then Marlboro Honda's Waldmann was into second, where he'd stay for the next eight laps. Aprilia's Harada had retired early when his engine slowed at the end of the third lap, leaving the Italians to their internecine warfare. Capirossi could draft by Biaggi on the straight, but the Marlboro Kanemoto Honda rider always got him back and didn't relinquish the lead until the 15th lap - and then it wasn't to Capirossi, but to Aprilia test rider and wild card Marcellino Lucchi. The 40-year-old [talian logs more miles at the Mugello circuit than any other rider, and his experience showed. In fact, he was a very comfortable third for much of the race, the thinking being that he didn't want to take precious championship points away from Capirossi. Yet he passed him the lap before taking the lead, using the draft going into turn, then overshooting the next corner to relinquish the spot. Biaggi crossed the line the leader ending lap 14, only to get passed by Lucchi on the front straight, the older Italian waving to his younger countryman as he went by. He said he was apologizing because he passed him on the straight and had also made a bet with a friend that he would wave if he passed Biaggi. [t had taken him that long to get by Biaggi because in the "first part of the race Biaggi was good to go quite slowly," Lucchi explained. "Then, when the race got a little bit faster, I had some problems with tires and brakes." Biaggi had troubles of his own. "My bike was very unstable through the first part of the track, but I just kept the gas on," he said. The team had taken a calcula ted guess at the carburetion after the morning warmup, and it seemed to payoff. Lucchi held the point for two laps before being taken by Biaggi going into one. Later that same lap, he nearly highsided in a fast' righ t, dropping back to third as Capirossi scooted by. Capirossi made a run at Biaggi on the next lap, getting marginally by before Biaggi reasserted himself. They stayed that way until the 20th lap, when it was obvious that Capirossi was going to .make a go of it. He bobbled in a leftright combination, but was close enough to make a run in the final corner. Exiting the looping left onto the front straight, Capirossi went under Biaggi,·but was carrying too much corner speed and ran wide, allowing the World Champion to nearly run into him before regaining the . momentum. The two sped to the line side by side, separating slightly at the flag as Lucchi unwittingly blew by Capirossi to take second. "No one wanted to give up on the last lap," Biaggi said. "In last corner, I imagined Loris was going to try to pass Biaggi," Lucchi said. "This happened and I slowed down to not overtake both, but just one of them. His speed carried him by Capirossi, who fought· to the end of the race with tire problems. He said he had rear tire problems from the start and "five laps before the finish, my fron t tire came down a little bit. The only opportunity to pass Max was in the last corner. My corner speed was not very good and Max and Marcellino passed me." Waldmann started to fade on the 16th lap, with Capirossi passing him after the German had used up his tires. He'd finish fOurtll after discovering that he couldn't pass. "I could hold their slipstream, but no more," Waldmann said. "That forced me to try extra hard through the corners and that burned up my tires, so I had to ease my pace in the late stages." Twenty-four seconds later came Team Tech3 Elf Honda's Jacque on a machine he never felt comfortable on. "We have had serious handling' problems since we got here, and today was no different," he said. "The front end was chattering badly all the way through the race and I couldn't pick the right lines through the esses." Sixth went to the Arie Molenaar Racing Suzuki of Noriyasu Numata, the Japanese rider a 10th in front of Nastro Azzurro Aprilia's Stefano Perugini. The pack following them numbered six, the other Suzuki of Jamie Robinson finishing eighth in his career best. He was so happy that he stopped to do a burn-out, then spun the bike out and tipped over. 500cc GRAND PRIX Cynics have taken to calling this class the Repsol Cup, so named for the absolute domination of the Repsol Handas to this point. They had taken eight of the nine podium places so far and all of the pole positions. When the green flag dropped, it didn't look like much would change. Okada led teammates Criville, Takurna Aoki, and Doohan, with Carlos Checa next, another Honda, then Rainey's Abe. The lead four split early, swapping spots liberally witJ1. Ooohan improving one spot per lap until he was in the lead to start the fourth lap. By·then, they had a gap of two seconds on Aoki, then Abe, and Checa, with the rest following. At the start of the sixth lap Okada led across tlle line for the first time, but only for one lap before Ooohan was in front at the line. Ooohan had passed Okada in the same left where he'd earlier taken Criville to get third. It was on the ninth lap that Criville left the track and the leaders. He'd been forced to his backup bike for the race after developing a problem with his race bike in the morning warmup. He had very little time on the backup and the carburetion wasn't right, so he was forced to override. "I ran off the track and on to the grass, so when I braked hard for the next the front tire was damp and lost its grip," Criville explained. "Again, I ran off the track and did a little motocross riding before getting back into the race." He quickly recovered and worked his way back into fourth - wl)ere he'd finish - on the 18th lap. Okada was the next to make a critical mistake, and his was spectacular, though not as costly as it could have been. He'd just passed Doohan when it happened, and the World Champion had a perfect view. "The pace was 54s, which is what. I expected," Ooohan said. "I don't think that he'd been running that in practice all that often. I wasn't expecting it. He hadn't really been out of shape. He'd had a few quick snaps. Right through there we're probably close to 200 kph (124 mph) where he did that. It broke away real quick and I was right behind him. And, basically, when he's breaking away, there's only one way I can go. He's all over the top of the bike. Had he fell, I'm sure he would have hit me." Doohan said it so affected his concen· tration that it took him nearly a lap to get going again. Once up to speed, he thought he was being chased, but infact was nearly alone. At the halfway mark his gap was 2.88 seconds, which stretched to 4.22 on the following lap, and grew steadily. When Takuma Aoki crashed in turn one on the 16th lap, it left Ooohan 6.59 seconds in front and on his way to victory. "The crash was my fault," Aoki said. "I went into the corner too fast and couldn't keep out of the gravel trap." Cadalora took over second when Aoki crashed; having gradually inched forward from a first lap 16th. The Italian said that a clutch problem had kept him from making a proper launch. "I knew it would be hard because in 500s it's difficult to pass people," Cadalora said. "But I could see my times were good and I knew I could get a good position." By comparison, Nobuatsu Aoki had a good start, though he was back in seventh, up to fifth on the fifth lap and moving forward by himself, which is how he ran much of the race. It was only when Criville got close near the end that he had any company, and it wasn't much. He beat the Spaniard by nearly two seconds. Criville's last victim was Beattie, the Lucky Strike Suzuki rider another poor starter. Away 12th, he persisted, took

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