Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Above) Al ex Barros (5) tr ies to hold off John Kocinski (19). Barros raced for second place. but cr ashed on the last lap. He remounted to finish 10th. Koc inski ended up seventh. (Left ) Sete ctibernau (15) f inished third - again. Suzuki's Nobuatsu Aoki (9) had his best ride of the year to f inish fourth. pinned under a hea vy tire wa ll beyo nd the air fence with his leg twisted badly. He lat er blamed m ost of th e injury o n th e length of time it had taken to get him free. In the maul behind him, meanwhile , Red Bull and Marlboro Yamaha riders Regis Laco ni and Carlos Checa collided at the Strubben hairpin while disputing 10th. Checa fell and remou nted, on ly to retire; Laconi stayed on board , bu t with a damaged bike s u ffe ri ng from bad vibrations. At th is stag e, quarter-distan ce, Biaggi had ta gged on to Barros an d th e pa ir w ere catching Kocinski. Meanwhil e, Abe had fallen ba ck, to be overtaken by Gibe rnau - w ho was, o nce again, obviously having fun with the whee l-spinning V-four Honda - an d Aoki, apparently u nfa zed by h is in ju r ed wri st, thoug h h e later a d m it te d: " I was screaming inside m y helmet." Kocin ski, on th e skids, managed to stay between Barros and Biaggi for severa l laps, whil e Gibemau led Aoki alon g wit h him to ca tch up by half-dista nce . The Spanish substitu te was on a 'charge Okada's blinder F or once completely d ry thro ugho ut, practice saw the usual final scramble in the last 10 minut es a more attenuated affair a t Assert. with its lungest lap of the year, when you must wa it more than two minutes a fter the checker ed flag for the last straggler to finish . There were no last-minute surprises this yea r, after Tada yu ki Okada set a blind er nine min utes from the end - the fastest -ever lap of Assen a nd five-tenths ahea d of th e rest . By that tim e Kenny Roberts Jr. had also moved up into the top three, after so me important su spe nsion cha nges that go t the bike from what engi neer Warren Willing descr ibed as only "ma rgi nally stable" to someth ing that made the rider crow, "At last I've got my confidence back." The last one to go fast est was Joh n Kocins ki, end ing up second , whil e Alex Criv ille, fas test on 'the first day, was the only top rider who failed to improve a nd he ende d up fourth. No t improvin g was no worry , Crivil le said - just a sym p tom that he was already race-ready with his time from Thursd ay, an d he' d spe nt the second da y trying va riations, none of whic h worked out. "You have to keep trying new things, ev en w he n you are a lready happy," he sa id. He wa s looki ng exe m p lary, run ning int o the corn er d eep, fast and smoo th ly, his new-found confid ence showi ng in his rid ing style. Kocinski wa s not overjoyed to be seco nd, even though he 'd slotted in three-tenths slower than Okada. "I ca n ride ar ound our front-w hee l problems for a fast lap , but until we get parts from Honda, I can't get the bike right for m y sty le," he said. "I like the trac k a nd I've ha d some good result s here, but until the bike is righ t, I wo n't be happy." Roberts was the only ot he r to circu late faster than Dooh an 's w a nd pick ed h is w a y throu gh to s tar t chall eng ing Barros for th e lead of th e grou p, though the Brazilian wo uld have no ne of it. An d all the w hile, th e ga p to Roberts up ahe ad was decreasing. With three laps to go, it was 2.5 seconds. O ne lap la ter it was 1.4 seconds. Clea rl y, th ey would ca tch h im by th e end. Roberts was thinking fast. Th e sta te of his tires mea nt he' d already had to slacken off even more, after breaking his shield in an out-of-saddle mom ent at the end of the straight. pole of last yea r, but tim es wer e close, wi th less than se ve nten th s covering the fro nt ro w , and th e next eig h t rid ers still with in a secon d - thi s at the longest track. All four fron t men had looked no tably smooth and consiste nt. Max Biaggi, leading row two, was not. He'd bee n langu ishing on the third row, then on the last possible lap he u sed teamma te Carlos Chcca as a marker and managed to mov e up to fifth, ironically bumping Ch cca from the seco nd to the third row in the pr ocess. Ther e was so me truth in Biaggi' s ass er tion tha t he cou ld ha ve been faste r but for yellow flags on the last lap (Checa sa id the same thin g), bu t the fact remained that it was only one lap. Sete Gibernau wa s alon gsid e, once again qu ite obvious ly enjoying the V-four's power, as we ll as making good us e of it. He happily sp ins and slid es the rear , and wa s only eight-tent hs down on old NSR hand Okada, even at this di fficult track. "I was doin g the times on my own, not following," he sa id proudly. A lex Barros was alongside, a crash victim on day one but another lookin g smoo th and fas t as he sho wed his experience around the grea t old tra ck . He had No rick Abe alo ngsi de, also rid ing impressively, until he slid off into the ha y bal es with a few minutes of the last sessio n rem a inin g - the yello w flags we re for him. Checa led row three, thanks 10 Biaggi, beginning - as practice wore on - to look more confident at this most demanding and revealin g of circuits. Then came No buatsu Aoki, benefitin g fro m the same sus pens ion adjustm ent s and easier hand lin g as his teammate Rober ts, pa rticu larly helpful in his case because of his still-weak left wri st: Jua n Borja was l l th , and Tetsuya Harada rounded ou t the third row on th e Apri lia V-t win, o f which more had been expected after its strong runs a t the last three tracks . The problem was the high average speed of th is fastest track of the yea r or at least associated with it, because of the ta ll gearing used . Lacking th e torque m ultiplication that its lower-po wer ed engine need s, instead of spin ning the rear w heel the Aprilia was hooking up a nd lifting the fro nt w hee l. " But I'd have looked pretty stupid if I'd fallen do wn tryin g to m aintai n a cu shion w h en it wa s impos sibl e," he said la ter. He d ecid ed to wa il it o ut. He w as dreading a m ass ou tbraking a ttack a t th e last chica ne, and was thus relieved w he n Barros tried to go a round the ou tside of him so mewha t earlier. "H e ou tbraked me - w hich is a first, by th e way, so I was n't to o wo rr ied, " Rob erts said . " I'd already brak ed la ter . than ever." Barros, for his part, said, " I had to try something." Bu t Roberts was righ t, and the Brazilian ran wid e into the dirt and fell. Robe rts mana ged to hold Gibemau at bay o ve r th e rema in d er of th e lap to hold on to his racelong second position by less than a tenth of a second . Aoki w as so m e three seco nds ba ck now, but in a ge nuine ly heroi c effort he m an aged to wi ths tand th e p ressure of Biaggi all the way to the flag, finishing with his Suzuki just inches clea r of the Yamaha . Abe was a li ttle w ay bac k in sixth, with Kocinsk i close behind h im . Juan Borja' s Mo viStar Hond a was a nother eight seconds away; the V-fo ur rider only jus t man aged to stay clear all race long of Haru chika Ao ki's well- rid de n Vtwi n TSR Honda. Barros remounted to save 10th place, ahead of Harada's Aprilia twin, w hich did not shi ne all weekend . Regis Laco ni limped home 12th, wi th Jurgen van den Goorbergh next on th e MuZ, after his heavy fa ll, with Seba stien Gimbert's V- "I wa nt to ope n the throttle, but I cannot," explained Harada. '1 ca n see the V-fours spinni ng and sliding, but I cannot." Jurgen van den Goo rbergh was 13th , a disap pointment after his Barcelona pole. But he was fortu na te to be there at a ll af ter wa lking away from a Vlry high- spe cras h on the first day. He ' ed d sus pected his throttle had jamm e open a t full speed at the end of the back straigh t, though the MuZ Weber was so com prehensive ly trashed in the crash that it was hard to tell. Then came Jam ie Whitham on the Modenas, followed by Luca Cadalora on the seco nd Mu Z, rather off-color and also crashin g after a relatively low-spee d collisio n with backrnarker Markus Ober. A genuine cliffhanger end ed in disa ppointme nt for 35-yearold Ulsterman Jer em y McWilliam s as Valentino Rossi's factory Aprilia just mi ssed the end-of-session flag, giving th e Italia n rid er one more chance to get pol e position during 250cc qualify- ing. "Us ually I d on't wo rry so muc h, but I wa nted to bea t (Max) Biaggi's recor d ," sai d Valentino afterward , ha ving achieved his aim a nd pu shed McWilliam s asid e by just un d er a qu art er of a second . . Both enjoyed the Aprili a adva ntage - speed down the back straight and other fas t sect ions - th ou gh McWilliams thou gh t Rossi had more of it than him . But he was riding high , enjoying th e hi gh-speed co rne rs , and addin g, "I ge ne ra lly race bett er than I qu alify, so I'm hoping for a good resu lt." An other Ap rilia was th ird wi th Ralf Waldmann, hopi ng above aU to ove rcome his prob lem since he switched to Aprilia of bad sta rts off the line. . " It is very ea ~ to open the throttle too much and then the engi ne goes on one cylinder," he said of his disc- valve twin. At th e fa r end of the ro w ca me re tu rn ed bad boy Loris Ca pirossi, reluctant to talk abou t his problems of the last two races an d adding tha t his bes t lap at the end had been spo iled by running into a gang of back markers. "I am not sure if I could have been qui cker. More impo rtant is to be ready for the race," he said, add ing that another bat ch of new engine parts from Honda had wor ked well. 7

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