Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Th e 250Cc Grand Pri x was led early on by Tetsuya Harada (31), bu t he w as ultimately passed by three Ho ndas . " (Bel ow) The 250cc GP was eventually fough t out between two men : Rail Waldmann (2) and Max Blagg l (1). Waldmann w on . lead s the charts with 214 points - three more than Harada and nine more than Biaggi. Afte r making a n early br eak, Tea m UGT 3000's Ka zuto Sakata ran in to engine prob lems, which allowed new World Champio n Valenti no Rossi of the Nastro Azzurro Aprilia team to run him down and wi n his 10th 12Sec race of the year. The ma rgin of victory, aft er the 22lap, 64.62-mile race, was 6.002 seconds, with most of that ga ined in the final two laps, as the engine prob lem o n Saka ta's Ap rilia proved nea rly terminal. The proble m be gan after five laps, with Saka ta sayi ng that his engine lost abo u t 1000 rpm. His lead at that point was 4.5 seconds, and from then on it began to dwindle. Rossi kept hammering away, and on the 17th lap took the lead . Quickly, he pulled out a one-second gap, the n kept add ing to it. Saka ta's second was secure with the pack behin d him not ab le to make a run a t th e leader s, though he felt lucky to have finished. Th e pursuers we re a large g ro u p, ending up as five at the end, with those left swapping spots in a furi ous ru sh to the li ne. Team Pileri Honda's Nobby Ued a pulled out a second and a half to take third, the final podium spo t. Fourth through seve nth were covered by .169 of a second, with Matteoni Racin g's Mirko Giansa nli (Ha n). Team UGT 300' s To mo m i Manako, Spidi Honda LCR' s Lucio Cecchinel lo (Ho n), and Team Axo Ino xma cel's Rob ert o Locatelli streaking across in that orde r. Rossi had clinched the cha mpionshi p in the previous ro und , bu t this wi n boosted h is lead . W ith tw o rou nds rema ini ng in the season, Rossi has 286 points, Ueda 200, and Manako 163. 250cc GRAND PRIX The 250cc race began und er cloudy s kies with C hesterf ie ld Elf Tech 3's Olivier Jacque ge tti ng th e jum p wi th a s w a r m beh in d waiting to po u nce which the y began to do on the seco nd lap . Waldmann took the lead for the first time. showing his pole position wasn't a fluke, as Jacque quickly reali ze d that he'd chosen too so ft a fro nt tire. . Ending th e third lap, Wald ma nn had better than a seco nd in hand - a considerable margin g ive n the compe tition, with Biaggi second in front of Uka wa, Harada, an d the fadi ng Jacque. "Then I make a bigmistake, " Waldmann exp lained. "I brake too late, I miss my poi nt, and I go straig ht in the gravel pit. I was in eig ht h. I wa s I think six or seven seco nds behind th e group an d I must push very hard and I go out with th e soft tire. Then I d amaged my tires when ] mu st go faster ." With Waldmann temporarily out of the picture, Hara da took the lead , jumping up from fourth to first and passing Biaggi along the way. Ukawa hun g in third , w ith Jacq ue and Loris Capirossi d ispu ting fifth. The lead went to Biaggi on the ninth lap, Harad a had it for tw o more, the n Biaggi again un til very near the end. By this time Wa ldmann had caught back up and was fourth . Th e pack number ed six , and there was about six-tenths co vering them for most of the middle pa rt of the race, when the racing was stu nning. Grad ua lly, the tail-enders dropped back - first Capirossi, then Jacque, whose fall was more precipitou s and landed him in sixth. "The overall se tu p wa s p retty bad , so the bike was moving around a lot - and then the front tire started slid ing," th e Frenchman sa id . " I didn't ha ve m uch fro nt-e nd grip from the fifth lap . After that it was a simple case of trying to score points." Capirossi wa s next to fall back, leav ing it to the top four to decid e the win. Waldmann m oved in front goin g into turn one on the 13t h lap, with Biaggi taking it back in La Caixa, the left mov ing into the stadiu m. Waldmann sa t for the ne x t several laps only to co m e under fire fro m Ha rada, now a s te ady th ird in fro nt of Ukawa. The Japanese r id er bri efl y fronted Wald man n on the 19th lap before the German took it back. But by now Biaggi was beginning to look invincible as he was about seven-tenth s in fr ont o f Waldmann. Harada , m eanwhile , had dropped to third, more than a second behind with three laps to go, with little hope of making it up. " It al wa ys see m s to be th e s a me problem," Har ad a said. "When ] open th e th ro ttle th e rear starts to s lid e, ] don 't have enoug h traction, and it runs wide on th e corners. On some tra cks I ca n con trol it, but it was n o t possible to do so here." Wa ld man n m ad e his attack on the fina l lap. He'd narrowed the gap to .377 of a second beginning the lap and took the inside line in to o ne after us ing the dra ft. Biaggi used the Repsol right -han d er to take the lead back, with Wald mann ah ead in th e n e x t com e r. Not long after th at, Biaggi missed a shift, losing tou ch with Waldmann and any chance of a win. "At th is moment I wa s very s trong for braking, I think: Biaggi said. "I was confident . "Bu t i t wa s a mistake, or I tried to push, but the gear doesn' t go in so I lost maybe 50 m eters, 40 meters. " And tha t wa s that. "It makes me ve ry happy that I'm leading the cha m pions hip," Waldmann said . " l' m ve ry, v e-y ha p py for m y team." Then, to Biag gl h e said , "You are three times World Champion - it doesn't m a tt e r t he four th t ime. Give m e one Worl d Cha mpionship ." Ukawa w as a na rrow third after a ha rro w in g fina l lap. "O n the last lap, Harad a passed me on th e stra ig ht because he has a reall y powerf ul eng ine," Uka wa said . "Then I Doohan tops Fast Freddie F n. ddie Spence r's 1985 run of nin e co nsecu tive 500('(" po le po sie tions stood until toda y, when Repsol Honda's Mick Doohan se t his l Oth-fa stcst qua lifyin g lime to gain the number-one sta rting spot for the Marlboro Catalunyan Grand Prix. He not onl y lowered his ow n qual ifyin g ma rk by about two- te nths of a seco nd, but he d id eno ug h laps at s peed to know that he co u ld finally win a GP on a track ver w on before - tho ug h the closenes s of the field (the top wh ere he's ne two row s on the same second) mean t he mig ht ha ve his hands full. '" I thin k we' ve had the bes t prepa ration as far as prepractice and qua lifying has gone - better -.0 than w e hav e in past years," Doohan sai d after his lap of 1:45.990/99 .768 mph around the 2.9-t-mill! Circui to d e Montmelo . "In the past, the Yamahas have either won or (Carlos) Chec a (the Team MoviS tar Hon da Po ns rid er who won in 19(6) . It w ou ld be good to wi n he-reo I would like to put a Grand Prix win here und er my belt. Saying that. I'm not go ing to go all ou t at all costs to wi n. We'll jus t get out there an d do the best WI:' can tomorro w and try to come up wi th oJ. w in. . "The desig n of the race track, wit h 50 many cons tant radiu s turns s it's a one- line race' tra ck, so that's why the time are ve ry close here. I think, again, even though it's a lo ng track and it has a lon g straight. I think that's w hy the 250s are !'>O dose here, because wit h the 500 you can't open the gas on the side of the tire. And wi th the 250s you can get o n it. You've go t su ch lon g turns, ye t yo u've o nly go t o ne line and if yo u try to vary the line yo u jus t los e time, so I think do ing a lot of laps here, understanding how the mach ine's working, is the major ingred ien t. I think that's wh y las t yea r, C heca, w ith the am ount o f tes ting they've done in different condi tio ns, came up trumps with the setup. J think that's why this track is so specialized . I think it's a good Yamaha O track, in saying: that as well, because the Yamaha !';('!LS aroun d turns so good ." Ca rlo s Ch ece wa s co n fiden t, de spite a co ld- tire cra sh whi ch d estroyed his motorcycle o n Friday aftern oon. "Every time I'm o ut on this track. I ride very fast right from the first lap," Checa said . "A nd I w as trying a new front tire which felt di fferent. and I didn't realize'that Jhold to get used to it before pu shing hard ." On Satu rday he knocked six-tenths off his time and carne within passed him in the hairpin, and when we crossed the line [ did not know if ] wa s third or fourth because it was so close ." The difference was .020 of a second. 500cc GRAND PRIX The day started cooler than it had all weekend and that would cause som e problems i n the e n d . M o st e v e ryo n e went w ith soft-compound tires, abu sing them past their limit and d rop ping more than a few riders down the res ults page. " The conditions from yes terday wer e a lo t diffe ren t," Doohan later no ted . 'The track temperature was a lot cooler. But I opted to go with the sa me tire as what we were run n i n g on yes terday . We did n' t reall y have th e sa me g rip in the rea r as w hat w e had a nd a fai r bi t of cha tter." .136 of a secon d of Doohan. though Rhe,", Etf RC.C. Technical Sports' N obua tsu Aoki wa s right on his heels, a mere .017 o f a second back after improving his tim e from the prev iou s day by more than two St."'Conds. Tadayuki Okada was riding a non-rBig Bang" Honda, similar to Dcoban's, and he was the firs t of the Honda works riders to do so. Okada had tested it at Brno , after the Czech Gr, and wa s convinced it was the right move. The engi ne wasn 't a probl em ; the suspens ion wa s. He go t the front right on Friday and o n Satu rday nearly go t the rear right. "Things go t better this morning but, altho ugh w e hav e made many sp ring chan ges. we still need more rear g rip," Okada sa id . Then came Red Bull Yamaha WCM's Luca Cadalora, the first Yamaha rid er, aided by new cy linders and elect rical parts, followed by Repso l Ho nda 's Alex Criv ille in his second race back after hand injuries mined his season. "1 don 't know w hy 1 co uld no t repeat the morning times, but some-ho w I did n't fee l so confide nt on the bike, and the times simp ly wou ld no t co me," said C riville, wh o wa s bo rn and still lin'S ncar Barcelona. "Naturally, my injured left hand is still painful and this is a handicap. The most d ifficult thing is using the clutch wh en I am changing d own through the gea rs." Kenny Roberts Jr. w as an e nco u rag ed e ig h th a fte r a complete' rethin king of the setup of the bike had show n promi se d uring a test itt Bmo following the CZl"Ch GP. That, and new engine parts and exhaust pipes flow n in from the United States, made it mo rt" like the rear-steering 500 he w as used to riding last yea r. He was seco nd for some time d uring Friday afternoo n's sessio n and wa s just off the front row for much of Saturday's sessio n be fore end ing up less than a seco nd behind po le-sitte r Doo ha n. "The tes ts we did at Bm o mad e all the difference to the chass is." Roberts Jr. said. "without the new se tup, I'd be a second slow er. The bike w as just too nose...heavy before so I could n't feel any thing. N ow I can slide the rear if I need to squar e o ff a co m er. The piper; are a lot better, too they really help the push out o f the turns." The third ro w was a hodgepodge: The works Repscl Honda V-twin of Takuma Aoki was ninth ahead of the Marlboro Team Roberts Modena s of Jean-Michel Bavle, the Honda Gres ini V-twin IIonda of Alex Barros, and Juan Borja's E SOO. lf The Team Rainey Yamahas of Sctc Gibemau and Norifumi Abe were both on the fourth row, along with Daryl Beattie on the Lucky Strike Suzuki. All three factory bikes were embarrassingly behind the private Honda V·twin of Tea m Millar MQr's Jurg£'n van dcr Goorbcrgh. There were 23 qualifiers. 7

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