Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Left! NoriyukJ Hap petti, and Jose Luis Cardoso (rightl crash simultaneously, side by side. ian to win the race by a scant .195 of a second. "I think we have gone through a difficult situation the last couple of years that have just gone by and it's never easy to deal with two seasons that you're not even close to getting a result," said Gibernau, who won his first race in his 72nd 500cc GP start, "but 1 think that I've kept my head down and worked as hard as I could to be able to get myself better even in the worst situations, and I think this is maybe the time it's going to start to payoff." Barros held on to second, with Roberts Jr. enjoying the best race of his disappointing championship defense season by finishing a very close third. Roberts Jr. wore a Fire Department of New York baseball cap on the podium in honor of those who perished in the September 11 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. The hardship for Roberts Jr. came in tire choice. He went with a soft slick in the rear and a soft slick on the front, while Barros went with a harder rear slick and an intermediate tire on the front. "I was never quick in the same places that these guys were quick, I was always quick in the other places it didn't matter as much," Roberts Jr. said. "I was getting some good drives on the front straightaway. Once it dried out right where their engines were coming in, that was pretty much my race. I'm happy with what I got." For Suzuki, which only two races ago suffered the embarrassment of Roberts Jr. pulling in with an ill-handling machine, it was a sweet moment. The last time two Suzukis were on the podium was at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama in 1993, with Alex Barros winning and Kevin Schwantz finishing third with a right hand problem. Marlboro Yamaha's Carlos Checa earned his fourth place. The Spaniard crashed on the warm-up lap and had to start the race from the pit lane on his spare bike. On top of that, he chose slicks, which meant he had to work harder than most to catch up at the beginning on the wet track. For much of the second half of the race he was the fastest rider, but the deficit was too much to make up. Gauloises Yamaha Tech 3's Olivier Jacque was fifth, followed by Repsol YPF Honda's Tohru Ukawa. The race did little to affect the championship standings. Points leader Valentino Rossi chose intermediates tires that worked early in the race - he led the first seven laps then the Nastro Azzurro Honda rider faded to an eventual 11 th-place finish, one spot behind Marlboro Yamaha's Max Biaggi. That cost Rossi one point, and he goes into the final four races with a 42-point lead, 225-183, over Biaggi. Rain was also a factor in the 250cc GP, though for different reasons. The race was stopped by a very brief shower on the 11 th of 27 laps with scoring reverting to the end of the ninth lap. The final results would be determined on aggregate time. Telefonica MoviStar Honda's Daijiro Katoh ended the first segment with a .155 of a second lead and the second one with a greater gap, winning his eighth race of the year by 4.943 seconds over MS Aprilia's Tetsuya Harada. "I'm very delighted to have won in Valencia, especially considering my last year's result [fifth]," Katoh said. "It was a tough race and, even if in the first part 1 soon took the lead, I knew [Tetsuya] Harada was behind me and he would not give up easily." After having led both on the track and in aggregate time, Harada finished second, losing the lead on the 20th of 27 laps. Fonsi Nieto scored his best finish ever with a third on the Valencia Circuit Aspar Team Aprilia. The win added to Katoh's championship lead, 247-198, over Harada, with four races to go. The 125cc race went down to the last lap, last corner. That's where Telefonica MoviStar Junior Team's Toni Elias nearly pulled off the victory, only to get snookered in a drag race to the finish line by Gilera's Manual Poggiali, the Italian appearing almost out of nowhere on the far outside edge of the track to snatch the victory, his second in a row and third of the year. Elias, an 18-year-old Spaniard, very briefly took over the lead as the field turned for home by splitting two others, L&M Derbi's Youichi Ui and SafiIo Oxydo's Simone Alex Barros (41 and Sete Glbemau (151 were involved In a race-long batUe as the track dried out and their tires starting to grip. Here they lead Shinya Nakano (56) who eventually finished seventh. Sanna. But Elias, who'd led the race on three separate occasions, and fell back as far as fifth, lost his drive on the exit with Poggiali able to sneak by on the fringe of the track. The margin of victory for the 18year-old Italian was .022 of a second, with first to 10th covered by 2.078 seconds. Elias' 15-year-old teammate, Daniel Pedrosa, finished third, the rookie sneaking through for his best result of the year. The podium was the first ever filled completely with teenagers. Poggiali's victory tightens up the 125cc World Championship. With four races to go, Elias leads Poggiali, 178-170, with Ui, who fell back to fourth, third at 132. lap the leaders put their hands up to signal a stop to the race. "At a certain point, 1 realized it has started to rain and I didn't know what to do, if to stop the race or not, for I had never experienced something like this before," Katoh said. "So I turned back and saw [Tetsuya] Harada putting his arm up and I just did the same." They were gridded by their order after nine laps - Katoh in front of Harada, Nieto 4.882 seconds back, with MS Aprilia's Jeremy McWilliams just in front of Petronas Sprinta Yamaha's Naoki Matsudo and SafiIo Oxydo Race's Roberto Rolfo. Then came Telefonica MoviStar Honda's Emilio Alzamora, at a deficit of 9.1 seconds to the leaders, with Fonsi's teammate Alex Debon in eighth. The delay was brief and the riders were soon back at it, with Harada leading on the track and the time charts, holding off Katoh and building up a slight edge. The lead was never 250cc GRAND PRIX Harada got the jump and led a four-rider breakaway for four laps. Katoh came by and the pair split from the field, holding over five seconds on third on the 10th lap. A light rain had begun to fall and on the 11 th This _ the story lit the end of the lSOOcc _ . wlth GIbemau (is) ....... the win _ Alex and Kenny it- cyale n e _ S • OCTOBER 3,2001 7

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