Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128001
ki) Fujiwara and hied pushing as hard as I could," Lavilla said. "I had a gap of fou r seconds to catch Haga and it stayed that way for a while, then went down, down, down and I caught him. (Colin) Edwards was slowing as well, but I just couldn't get past him on the last lap. I think I could have had an even better result if I had go t away with Chili. He was only a bit in front of me. but I had to pass three riders to get to him and by the time I had moved through he was go ne. It was impossible to catch Aaron Slight in the end of race two, but I was ha p py for the ' team, especially with Akira on the podium." ot happy with much was the uncharacteristically uncom petitive Co lin Edwards II. "We just got it wrong to d ay," he ad mitted. "Setu p, tires. everythi ng. We went backwards fro m Friday. You win so me, you lose so me. The more I think about it the more I think we're wrong with the bike. Som e weeks it's good and so me weeks it's bad, but I can always set it up to d o good lap tim es in qualifying." . If Edwards' sixth and seventh places is a slid e ba ck from recent form, the n Vittoriano Guareschi's ninth and eighth are the exact opposite. Look ing cool and compo ed, Guareschi was battling hard on a track he knows well and he looks more like a superbike rider every weekend. "I got a great high from fighting with Chili, Edwards and Lavilla in the second race. and it was great passing Fujiwara," Guareschi said. "My goal for the weekend was to be right up there with the best and I did that. I worked hard today and got the result I deserved." His outwardly more illustrious teamma te oriyuki Haga may just have given the R7 another podium finish in the second race. with one of his finestever d isplays of riding on the edge, had it not been for the intervention of the fates. Sad ly for hi m, and the spectacle value of what were two fairly dull races by any measurable stand ard. he crashed on lap 11 - a t Tramonto - just shy of the halfway. Still, it was a massive improvement on his dramati c slide to the comparative oblivion of eigh th pla ce in the first race. ha ving been up in third for the early laps until a tire and gearing mismat ch slung him back d own the field . "There has been an overa ll improve- 's tur A s if to prove that he should never be counted out of things, Carl Fogarty stormed to Y'" another Superpole successat Misano. His mark of 1:33.995 w as full•.4 of a second better than his previous best in regular qualifying. and .2 of a second better than the deposed Superpo1e King- Troy Corser. It was Fogarty's 20th pole position in over 200 races. "I hate this circuit - it's probably my worst all. - but I had a good perpo1e lap," Fogarty said. "Maybe too good, because l hate winning it I'd rather come fourth so I don' t ve to attend the press conference and (( can) get down to the beach earlier." • h,'CI' aggressi n and no small amount of abandon allow Akin Yanag wa to join the Superpole party with third-fastest time and his fellow Japanese. oriyuki Haga, also made it His time, only .015 of a second slower than to the front row with a mightily pugilistic 1:34. Yanagawa. was also only .005 of a second faster than Aaron Slight, making it no H ndas on the front row - a \'eI)' rare ight indeed. Colin Edw rds 11 was another down in the re1ati wasteland of the second ro in sixt h. The shock of the session w as, however, reserved for top Kawasaki privateer Robert Ulm from Austria, who slotted his Bertocchi/Gerin machine into seventh after an almost perfect Supcrpole lap • and 1.2 seconds faster than his 11 th-best time. "A perfect lap is impossible, but that one was probably 1M best 1could do,- he said. H . think Dunlop have a very good qualifying tire now, nd we are learning to make better suspension settings to suit all the components of the bike together. The tires are good, but it may be a big problem to choose the right race tire. This is the biggest problem coming from Supersport to Superbike." Another honorable mention should go to Villoriano Guareschi for his fast and smooth performance - not a blitzing lap but much more assured and mature than some of his one-lap effortsand far better than his premature ejecti n at Donington. o "I have come a long way since the big nerves at the start of the season and now I focus my efforts on getting the best out of my machine,- he said. Pier-FrancescoChili was in better line for a good Supcrpole lap time, despite his aches and pains, until he almost lost the back end coming out of Variante Del Rio. "It was the slippery track." said Chili . "just like hen I crashed." ment in the bike this weekend, but still something is missing. which we need to . find before we get to Lagu na." Ha ga said. In a day that promised much for Kats ua k i Fu ji wara and h is Suz u ki. the rewards were sligh t, w ith a ver tical d ro p d own to 14th in ra ce o ne a n d a much better ninth in race two . Those positions were gai ned at th e expense of Robert Ulrn in the first race and Peter Goddard in the second. The other rid er to sacrifice a p lace to Fujiwara and the chasing pri vateer pack was the aforemention ed Peter Goddard. A good 10th on a bike wi th which he was u nco mfortable in race one, a decision was made to change the geometry (to increase rear gri p) . which meant fas ter lap times in race two but a lessplanted front end. Hence a crash. "Our smallest adjustment of the suspension is still too much." Goddard commented. "We need to change it so that our adjustments are much finer. I have a new crew chief for this weekend, and I think that that's going to help us with consistency from now on. " Lucio Pederci ni u s ed his home advantage to take a great 11th in race one and a decent 14th in race two. Lance Isaacs was the undisputed privateer star of race one, finishing ahead of local rider Mauro Lucc hiari, works Suzuki star Katsuaki Fujiwara and series regular Igor Jerman. RACE ONE The usual cavalry charge to the hick ')' first right-hander of the Curva Misano saw Corser head up Yanagawa and the rapid-starting Robert Ulm, a man making good use of his seventh-place sta rt- (Above ) Aaron Sl'g (111) rebounded to fourth on the day. A1dra Y wa (4) was an Impresslve third In both race s. (Above) Fogarty (1) leads Corser (11) and Norlyuld Haga (hidden) In the second race . ing position in among the big bad works boys. Ha ga, Fogarty Edwards and Slight pa cked in behind th is trio, but not for long. Haga became the first to overhaul VIm, followed by Fogarty and then, it seemed, everyone else. as Vim fell to eighth and then just fell on lap two. Pao lo Blora became the next casualty of the slick surface, his local knowledge doing him no good at all when he tipped off on the same lap. Meanwhile. the top men were sorting themselves into some semblance of order, with Corser streaking away at the front to open up a mall gap on Yanagawa for three laps and then Fogarty for a further three after the Englishman passed Haga. Lap six saw the lead change from Corser to Fogarty. wi th the other ma in upwardly mobile missile being the Honda piloted by Aaron Slight, working his way up to third on the sixth lap. Haga, making up for his Yamaha's lack of speed with his usual devilish co rnering technique. was by tha t stage reduced to the level of bit-part p layer, even after he took Yanagawa for fourth, simply because the pace at the front was so strong. owhere near the lap record set by John Kocinski two years previously. mind you, but in re la ti ve terms the Ducatis were untouchable. .