Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Carlos Checa returned to act ion and was Impressive. finish ing seventh In his return to racing .afte r suffering Inte rna l lnjurtes , (Above) Tetsuya Harad a (31) won tne 250cc Grand Prix after a battle with his tea mmate Lor is Caplrossl. Rainey Yam a ha's Jea n-Michel Bayle, the Fre nc hman in h is fi rst GP of th e yea r after his own preseaso n inju ries . With Regis Laconi pushing through to ninth, it w as a bad da y for his Red Bull Yam aha teammate a nd Brit ish GP winner Sim on C rafar, who wa s two places back in lith. Th e pair had Kenny Ro b e r ts Jr. between them on the Mkl Modenas, a fte r the new Mk2 v e rsion g ave him trouble in practice and w as temporarily shelved . It wa s also a bad d ay for Su zuki. Top rider N o b ua ts u A ok i w as 12th, jus t fe n d i ng off fron t-ro w qu ali fi er Ralf Wa ldma nn a n d his Ma r lboro Modenas after va rio us problems. An d it was a lso a ba d d a y for Jo hn Kocinski, who was making his return fro m injury . H is M o v iSt a r Ho n d a was off the pace all w eeken d , a nd he scored just one poinl fin ish ing 15th behind Eskil Suter's MuZ. This was es pecially frus tra ting for Jurgen van d en Goorberg h, whose p riva te V-twin Hond a had led the American' s facto ry V -fou r for m ost of the race. He was just over a second beh ind a t the end, bu t out of the po ints. Th e ea rlier 250cc Grand Prix ra ce was anothe r Aprilia walkover, with Tetsu ya Ha ra d a defeatin g teammat e Loris Capirossi, with part-time racer a nd factory tester Marcellino Lucchi thi rd - taking over the absen t Jurgen Fuchs's entry on a 1999 factory prototype. It wa s the Ita lian firm' s ninth consecutive class win, breaking MV Agusta' s record of eig h t, th ou gh still sho rt of Honda's 19 - consolatio n for the fact that th ird works rid er Valentino Rossi crashed out on th e firs t lap. H ond a h ad new p ar ts fo r the ir unhappy wor ks rid ers, but th ey w ere no t e noug h, a nd th ey yet again had to su ffe r th e humilia tion of be in g bea ten b y a w ell-ridd en private b ik e . Q UBTeam O p timum Honda 's Jeremy McWill iams held o ff the fact ory Hon d as o f Ben etton r id er Tohru Ukawa and FCCs Haruchika Aoki a ll race long for fou rth . Fellow Briton Jay Vincent a lso rode s u per b l y to pu t his Pa d g e tt s Honda seventh, a t the hea d of the next a nd bigges t group of the race. Chesterfield Honda's Olivier Jacque didn't finish, after fighting his way back through after ge tting left al most last off the line. Teenage hero Marco Melandri won a breat htaking 125cc GP, h is second debut-season wi n, exactly one yea r af ter SOOcc GRA ND PRIX Biaggi le d Barros and Criville off the lin e , bu t Doohan ha d m o v e d to second b y th e tim e th e y ra n in to th e long rig ht -hander at th e b o ttom of the hill. He never made it through the corner. " T h e fro n t tire jus t le t g o ," he explained tersely. The Austral ian ran to the bike , h e a v e d it o u t of th e gr a vel , and rejoined in a distant last p lace. H e had moved o nly up to 19th after 12 laps w he n he p u lled in to th e pits, h is badl y dam a ged sea t unit m e ltin g on t h e ex ha us ts. Mkl Modenas - afte r Roberts Jr. crashed heavily on day one ' Last-minute Mick when the new engine seized - and he admitted he was as sur- prised as anybody. "I couldn ' t hav e do ne that lap witho ut the help of Max (Biaggi)," the German said . "He let me follow him and take his slipstream . But there were places I could have passed because of my higher corner spe -d." ... "Of course it 's a b a d r e su lt, but there's still five races left," he said later, Biaggi was never se riously challenged again, th ou gh Barros remai ned within inc hes for almost the full di stance - bid ing his time for an a ttac k, he sa id later. Th e back-and -forth cam e behind them, with Criville clo sin g up, riding cautiously, only to be co n s ig ned to fourth at half-distance by Okada, who'd picked his way throu gh from a mediocre start. . .As the finish a p p roach ed, th e battle g o t h otter, w it h Okada running wide with two la ps remaining a nd giving the increasingly aggressive Cri ville a n opening. The Sp aniard had by now rea lized he was no t the only one sliding arou nd on worn tires, a nd on the next la p he passed Ba rros con vin cingl y . H a d he made h is run a little ha rder and ea rlie r, he might have ch allenged for the win . Barros was happy-e no ug h with a close third, h is firs t rost rum of an u p a nd -dow n yea r - but he a lso sa id Biaggi had been lucky. "I was ready to go for vic tory w he n I ra n in to g ea r-s h ifting problems on the pe nultimate lap," Barros said . Abe h ad s ta r te d well , but h e lo st Kenny Roberts co ngratulates Ra lf Waldmann after the German put the Modenas on the front row. This was in the closing minut es o f a ses sion that had been B rno is a difficult track, and it can bring unpred ictable results. There was no surprise in Mick Do oh an 's six th pole of the season, achieved with the fastest-ever officially timed lap of the fast and sweeping 3.35-miletrack. But he had to wrait until the closing minu tes before finally disp lacing Max Biaggi from the lead he'd held throug hou t the two dr y but windy days. "It's not one of my favorite tracks," Doohan said . "I don't know if it's just a Honda problem, but you' re always chasing the front wheel on the downhill come rs here.' As a result, rather than his usual method of getting the bike set up on the first day of practice, he was still making changes right up until the last session. "Every time I went out, I had a different setting,' Doohan explained . Tbc defending champion was riding superbly, w ith the cameras capturing o ne particularly awe-inspiring slide under brakes into a fast corner - all proof enough of his formidable talent, in the crucial closing stages of the season. As if any were needed. One could say the same about Biaggi, who remained second in spite of crashing in the final sessio n - in the final and slowes t chicane. He blamed the wind, adding: "I damag ed my best bike, and hurt my wrist and ankles." Did this mean he. too, could have gone faster? his d ebut here as a wil d card. Th e Benetton Pl a ylife ri d er profited fro m tw o crashes by Japanese rivals You chi Ui and M asao A z u ma, ea ch of whom cras hed while lo oking set for a b reaka,way w in in th e closing stages. Champio ns h ip lead e r Ka zuto Sa ka ta , o n hi s UGT A p r ilia, w a s seco n d and Gi v i Hond a rider Lucio C e cchin ello wa s th ird , a fte r ea ch pla yed their part in an extraordi nary battle th at for most of the r a c e h ad 13 o r m ore riders lo cked together in th e leading g ro u p. . "Yes," he replied, though the point remained hypothetical. Third went to Jean-Michel Bayle, even though the Yamaha rider failed to improve on the second day. "I like the track, because of all the very hard braking:' Bayle said. "But I think the Yamaha likes it even more." In his comeback after six months' recuperation from concussion, he looked stead y but somewhat stressed. "I feel fine on the bike, but I am not sure how I M il be over full race distance," he said. The fourth man was a real surprise - Ralf Waldmann, in his first-ever 500cc-c1ass front-row qualifying position. Like his teammate Kenny Roberts jr., he had switched back to the old interru pted by a red flag after Carlos Checa fell and his fuel tank caught fire in the middle of the track - at the same slow chicane that had claimed Biaggi. Waldmann 's run disp laced Alex Barros by less than a tenth of a second, consigning the Brazilian to lead row two from an ' off-form Alex Criville ("I didn 't sleep very well last night," he explained), returnee Tadayuki Okada, and second Modcnas man Roberts, who was still hurting after his Friday high-speed tumb le. The times were typ ically close, except for Doonan 's flier, with Roberts within a second of Biaggi - a tiny margin at this long track with its two-minute lap time. The track was big enough, however , to keep the troubled Suz u ki team back o n ro w three , where Nobuatsu Aoki o nly moved up to ninth in the closing stages, after more or less going backward prior to that. His new teammate, Katsuaki Fujiwara, was no help, still way off the pace. He was not the only one having trouble at the difficult track. Returning injury vi ctim Checa was 10th, with every reason to be the slowest Honda , especially afte r his cras h; but the Yamahas of British GP winner Simon Crafar and Norick Abe in 11th and 12th were a disappointrnen at a track that generally favors the sweet-handling Yamahas and (in Crafar's case) Dulllop tires, "I was not as sharp as usual after the long break," said the modest Crafar. His teammate Regis Laconi led row four, still less than 1.5 seconds down on Biaggi, with Eskil Suter's MuZ next, followed by top privateer [urgen van den Coorbergh's V-twin Honda . . The biggest surprise, perhaps, came in the lackluster performance of return ee John Kocinski, who was perfectly che rful e but way off the pace. Matt Wait was the last out of 24 qualifiers, at the far end of a sixth row led by new boy Fujiwara's Suzuki. There was a frisson of excitement on day one of 250cc qualifying when Olivier Jacque managed to put his revised Honda into third position a mong the Aprilias. It didn't last. Firstly, s lo w starter Va lentino Rossi finally got going to join the black-shirt party up front; and secondly, Jacque pointed out that he was still having to ride ri dicu louslv hard in the corners to make a good lap time - there was no way he could bum up his tires like that all race long. Marcellino Lucchi was back, riding in place of Genna n GP victim [urgen Fuchs, but on an all-new development chassis for next year's works Aprilia. He was fastest as the end of the last session approach ed ; then both Loris Capiros si and Rossi went out and knocked him down bv a few cru cial fractions. It was Capirossi's fifth pole of the year, and he was thrilled . "1 am in perfect condit ion, and so is my bike," Ca pi rossi said . "This track has only o ne slo w comer, where the Aprilias are not so good. My on ly wea k po int is my starting, and thoug h I have practiced a lot, it is still not perfect." Rossi was less than two-tenths down, with Lucchi barelv further away. But the factory tester promised not to interfere' with any race battle of his full-time teammates, while Rossi joked, "I s am far enough behind in the championship that if I do win, it doesn't make any difference." Tetsuya Harada was fourth, but troubled and puzzled to be 1.3 seconds off pole. "I can't explain it, but this is the worst track of the year so far for me," he said. Jacque led row two by less than half a second from Jeremy McWilliams's private QUE Honda, the Ulsterman again proving to be a thorn in the side of the works NSRs. He had Stefano Perugini's wnrks bike alongside, with Tohru Ukawa' s similar bike next. 7

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