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World Championship Road Race Series
Round 1 1 : Portuguese Groand Prix
By lap six, Katoh was in second,
and pushing hard.
"At the beginning, 1 couldn't keep
their pace because the Aprilias were
faster than me on the straight," he
said, "so 1 pushed as hard as I could
under braking and just went as fast as
I could."
Fast enough to dive past Melandri
under brakes for turn one as they
started the seventh lap.
The Italian tried hard and stuck
with him, his handling problems of
practice not completely better, but
much improved all the same. Shortly
before half distance, however, after a
couple of big slides, he elected to settle for a safe second.
"Better that than crash - but I am
not satisfied," Melandri said. "I knew
once Katoh passed me, he would
probably be faster, but 1 race to win."
So the leading trio trailed on for
the second half of the race, the gaps
between them eking out, but the rest
of the field also dropping away
behind them.
Leader of the rest was Jeremy
McWilliams, who had been passed on
lap five by Alzamora's Honda, but
then had the pleasure of seeing his
Spanish rival slide off less than two
laps later. He had Naoki Matsudo's
Petronas Yamaha glued on behind,
but the Japanese didn't have the
wherewithal to challenge.
They might have continued this
way until the end, especially after
their early companion Fonsi Nieto
(Aprilia) had been nerfed off into the
dirt, rejoining in 11 th, while fast
starter David Checa (Fomma Honda)
hung on bravely on his private
Honda, but started to drop away from
lap eight.
However, big things were happening behind, where Rolfo was recovering from his first-corner dirt-tracking
moment and getting faster and faster.
By lap 13 he was ninth, having
caught up to Nieto, who was mixed
up in a group with Shahrol Yuzy
(Yamaha) and Franco Battaini (Aprilia). It took him another seven laps to
get past the Spaniard, who then went
with him as he rapidly closed down
on McWilliams and Matsudo.
It took the Italian three laps to get
through the group and move away
ahead in fourth, even closing to within seven seconds of Harada at the
end - a probable podium finisher but
for his earlier excursion.
Nieto was engaged with the other
two when he had a remarkable
escape - thrown off in a high-side
crash, he landed back lying across
the bike and managed to bring it to a
stop and get going again without losing a place.
McWilliams was thus fifth, Matsudo
inches behind, then Nieto just ahead of
Checa. Then came Battaini and Yuzy,
with Klaus Noehles (MS Aprilia) pre-
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SEPTEMBER 19, 2001
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cue
vailing over the pursuit to take 11 th,
ahead of Alex Debon's similar bike.
David de Gea (Yamaha) prevailed
over the next close battle, with Jay
Vincent (QUB Yamaha) on his heels,
then Jeronimo Vidal (Aprilia) taking
15th, and David Tomas (Honda) out
of the points by inclles.
Katoh now has 222 points to Harada's 178, with Melandri closing on
169. Rolfo has 128, drawing further
ahead