Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

th en Alzamora passed him, but with a little to o much enthusiasm. Ueda was abl e to repass, up the inside. Vasco Rossi Racing 's Locatelli was a shad ow fourth, about four-t en ths o f a second ba ck. Azuma leaves Britain with a 20-point lead , 147-127, over Alzamora . Locat elli is third with 100. 250cc GRAND PRIX Early in the 250cc G P, Rossi led a three-rider breakawa y, taking Nakano and Capirossi with him. Ca pirossi to ok th e lead o n th e 10th lap, with Rossi getting it right back and leading across th e stripe for the next tw o laps . Early in the 11th lap it began to drizzle and Ross i put h is hand u p - as the race lead er, that's h is p rerogative stopp ing the race. " D u r i n g th e fi rst p a rt of th e r a ce, w hen I put m y hand u p to stop th e race, it's true that it wasn't raining too much," Rossi sa id , "But w ith sli ck tir es, there's ab solutely no gri p when it rains." The driz zl e s to p p ed, th e r ace w as gridded from the en d of th e ninth lap, and the r e were 18 to go - th e fin al results be ing d ecided o n aggregate time. Rossi to ok a .237-of-a-s econ d edge into th e second p art of th e race, w it h only 1.861 seconds covering first to fift h. T he secon d time o u t it was again Rossi a nd Capirossi, this time joined by Shell Ad v ance H on da T eam ' s Toh ru Ukawa, Nakano, and McW illiams on the QUB Tea m Optimum Ap rilia. Within a few la ps the top tw o were ed g in g awa y, with Ca pi rossi in fr ont from lap 13 on, Ca p irossi second, th en a ga p to Ukawa , w ho would come u nder attack fro m behind, a pack of riders all contesting fou rt h. O n aggregate ti me Ukawa was d ropped to fourth b y Nakano o n the 23rd lap, but he would fall no further. "It was ve ry hard," Ukawa sai d . "My bike was m ovin g around a bit. I co ul d not keep up w ith the leaders ." The to p four spots were decided on Alex Criville (3) came back from his Dutch GP cr ash to win for the fifth time in 1999. He was chased to the finish by Tetsuya Harada (31) and Tadayuki Okada (8). the 23rd la p w hen Rossi m o v ed past Ca p irossi for th e lea d in th e Old Ha irpin, a moder at ely fas t d ownhill left, a nd N akano, on lime an d in positi on , m oved into third. By th en he was too far back to m ak e a run a t the lead ers, w ho had severa l seconds in hand, and Nakano was ha p py wi th thi rd, considering h is ha n d. '1 felt okay in the first part, but w he n we s to p ped th e pain was q uite ba d," Naka no said of the rig ht ha n d which he'd injure d in a Friday p ractice crash. " It took a few la ps to get used to rid ing with the pain, bu t then I went with (Stefano) Perugini to ca tch Ukawa." Perugin i wo uld end up fifth, in fro n t of McWilliams. McWilliams had been fourth af ter th e firs t ni ne laps, only to fin d h is macliine be haved differently in the second leg of the race. "I m ad e a change to adjust the brakes for the res tart wi th a little more on th e rear, but even with the sa me tire in th e bike, I was struggling from the off," he sai d . . In large part, tires would decide th e race. On the restart, the track conditions ha d changed a nd Ca pirossi wasn'tcornfortab le with h is tires, even though he Eight is enou h E ight races, eight poles, eight different riders. That's how it was coming in to Derrington Park. Would yet a ninth rider take his first pole of the season? Not if Tadayuki Okada had any say in the matter. A week removed from taking his first pole position of the season, at the Dutch IT in Assen, the 32-year-old Repsol Honda rider pulled one out of the hat - and not many more than one taking the pole at a time slower than last year's and one he could n't easily match. And it was nearly a meaningless mark since the top 13 riders in the 500cc class were all crowded onto the same second. "Not every thing is perfect, because from yesterday to this morning, not so much for the good feeling this morning, for me I just try to make a qualifying lap time today," said Okada, who on ly ha d two lap s in th e 1:32s, the better of which was a I :32.597/97.191-m ph tour around the 2.5-mile circuit in Britain's E.1St Midlands. Okada himself wasn' t impressed with the time, noting that h is machine wasn't set up properly and that he was still struggling with a rear-tire choice and would have to test one in Sunday morning's wannup. "I'm a little surprised by my pole because everything is still not perfect on the bike. The front is getting better but we're slightly worried about rear-tire endurance for the race," he said. What Okada and a number of other riders noted was the dichotomy of the track. Most of it was fast, smooth and sweeping. but the grafted-on back section was slow and bumpy and tough on the brakes. A week removed from a race crash in Assen that bruised his leg and hip, championship leader Alex Criville was surprised to find himself on the front row, let alone in second place, just .063 of a second back. The 29-year-old Spaniard said the injury made it hard to change direction and that he had to use his upperbody strength more than usual. Even so, he might have even taken his second pole of.the year had he not made a mistake on one of the few laps he could do on his qualifying tire. "Yes, I feel also happy because after the crash in Assert," Criville said. "I can't imagine that now I'm riding comfortable and also in pain just a little bit, but I'm lucky, because last week was not so good because this muscle, it's quite difficult, it's so led for 10 laps. It was early in th at run th at he kn ew he wou ld struggle. "After five fas t laps, I started to lose grip and Valentino (Rossi) a ttacked a nd passed me," he said. "Also, w hen I was ahead , I couldn ' t ru n away b ecause I was not consta nt in my laps. M y rea r tire was not in a good co ndition a nd it would have been d ang e rous to pus h hard, so I decided not to ta ke the risk." Rossi also ha d five fast laps, but his were at the end . He passed Capirossi in an area i n w hi ch he felt he had an advantage, the d ownhill rig ht o f the Old Hairpi n, and Ca p irossi ha d no answer. Crossing the line to end the 24th lap he'd already amassed a 1.315-second lead tha t he would incremen ta lly stre tch un til the ches t-pou nding Victory celebration with w hich he punctuated his w in. "With five laps to go, I tried to go past him and once I did so, I thought that was w hen the r e a l fight would start," Rossi said. "Instead, I just pulled away." 500cc GRAND PRIX Criville didn't get such a good start, but he decided to be patient. Th e standout rid er in the class thought back to his painful, but now 1 took medicine and deep massage and thera.. py and now I feel okay, so it's fantastic:' Criville didn 't do a lot of laps in the 32s, but he did more tha n Okada and a numbe r in the low 33s. For the race, it was that sort of consistency that would be rewarded . The pace, he said, would be a couple of 32s, then the rest in the 33s. H feel comfortable because I did many laps in 32 and I was I very consistent and I think the race will be very hard, because, 30 laps, it's a long race and I'm looking forward to tomorrow," Criville said. As for the question of whether there were team orders tha t would allow Criville to overtake Okada, should it come to that, Crivi lle answered, "Never, nev er - even wh en I raced wi th Mick (Doo han) in '% and '97. We have no orders, team orders, so in this way everyone is pushing hard and this is racing. And for me, Okada is my teammate, but on the track is like any other rider." Marlboro Yamaha's Max Biaggi joined the front row in the final five minutes after spending the rest of the session, and the three previous, trying to find a fast way around . "Of course, we try to set up the bike in many ways possible on this track because it's so bum py and up and down, you must find a comp romise ," he sai d . The problem this year, which has put him and teammate Carlos Checa on their head a few times, has been front-tire grip, which he said was improving . "We changed the. geometry, moving m ore weight to the fro nt, whi ch makes the bike tum better," he said . "We also changed the suspension setup, which give me better rear-end traction ." Biaggi, like Criville, was still coming to grips, literally, with an injury. His was an older wound, but it was to his hands. He Sol id it was "com ing better ," and rid ing was the best m ed icin e he could find. "Not perfect, but it's coming better. I can hold the grip, I can push now not 100percent, but near," the 28-year-old Italian said , For him, the layout was a mixed blessing, the relati~ ease of the early fast, sweeping bends negated by the hard-braking chicanes and hairpins at the end of the lap. N orick Abe qualified fourth, his first front-row appearance of the season, though his time was down from 1998. He wasn't quite sure what got him there and thought he might have gone faster had troubling winds not bothered him. As in '98, Abe was having front-end problems, which was magnified by the winds. crash th e p revi ous week at Asse n, a nd th e p oints that he lost, a nd rea lized he had 30 laps to ge t to the front. It d idn't tak e th at lon g. H e was there on the 11th a nd everyone th ereafte r, th ough w ith litt le comfort. T e amm ate Okada ha d to b e dispat ch ed and tha t was done in th e Melbo urne Hairpin, p art of a section of the tr ack that was g rafted on to the end of th e lap years ago to make it a p rope r le n g t h . Bu t the Japanese ri de r was resi lient a nd never really los t tou ch , even th ou gh h e dropped as far ba ck as fou rth. For the most par t the re was a fiverid er pa ck, which CriviIle h ead ed , bu t which ch anged its order every few laps. O n the 14th lap, one befo re the halfwa y mark, th e first five riders were covered by 1.681 seconds . The order a t tha t point was Criville, Biaggi, Okada, Laconi and Ha rada. Behi nd them; .MoviStar Honda Pons ' Juan Borja had jus t pa s s ed Robe rts, w hose d a y w ou ld on ly get worse. Though h e repassed Borja on the penultimate la p, the Spaniard too k over seventh on the final ci rcuit. The race began to so rt itself out with less than 10 laps to go. Biaggi got shuffled back fro m second to fourth on the 20th "Althoug h I am very happy with the -position - it is never bad to be on the front row - the bike didn 't feel quite as settled as yes terday," the Antena 3 0 ' Antin rider said of his 1998 Yamaha YZRSOO. " I think that was because of the wind. We will wait and see what the conditions are tomorruw befo re a ltering anything, but if it is windy, we will make some adjustments to the front end." Kenny Roberts Jr. was a very unhappy fifth fastest, ha ving been on the front row for all but one of the previous races. The consolation was that he was but .012 of a second behind Abc and righ t in the mix, des pite discovering, yet aga in, that the Suzuki was gut less compared to the rest. "There are times when the greater power and lighter weight of the ot her machin es is go ing to co me into play, and tod ay was .one of those times," the 25-year-old Team Suz uki rid er said. "We have made very few changes to the bike today from yesterday; it was already about right." The time margin do ubled to sixth- fastest Juan Borja, the MoviStar Honda Pons rider .025 of a second behind Roberts in sixth place. Unlike Roberts, being on the second row didn't bother Borja. "What matters to me is the rhythm of the leaders and my own rhythm," he said. Aprilia 's Tetsuya Harada put the V-twin in seventh after finding that he couldn't match the acceleration of the V-fOUTS. "The V-fours are very fas t out of the comers, whereas o ur bike has a tendency to wheelie too mu ch," the 29-year-old Japanese rider said. "The Aprilia engineers have been working on the engine to improve that, but it's a tough compromise because we have to mak e su re we don't lose a ny acceleration in the process." Eighth fastest was Frenchman Regis Laconi on the Red Bull Yamaha WCM machine. Repsol Honda's Scte Gibernau was ninth fastest and the first rider not to improve on his Friday time. He credited it to waiting too long to come in for his qualifying tire. A tick behind was Kanemoto Honda 's John Kocinski, another rider who didn 't improve his Friday time, blaming lappers who balked him on his qualifying run. "I got caught IIp in traffic just after I'd put on a fresh set of tires," Kocinsk i sa id. "I was about to go for a fast time, but because of this traffic I couldn' t go any faster." 7

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