Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

hard. The gap stayed constant almost to the finish. His teammate Loris Capirossi, who had started from pole, was third, dropping back through a race that saw first-corner leader Kenny Roberts Jr. and the Telefonica MoviStar Suzuki drop back throughout, with Antena 3 Yamaha's Norick Abe pushing through to third, with Repsol Honda's Tohru Ukawa narrowly ahead of countryman Shinya Nakano and his Gauloises Yamaha. Then came an off-form Carlos Checa on the second Marlboro Yamaha, overtaking Roberts on the final lap. But the most disappointed of all was a fuming Sete Gibernau, who had passed teammate Roberts and had held off Ukawa and Nakano for most of the latter part of the race. He was behind them again at the start of the final lap - only to run out of gas on the last lap, stuttering across the line an angry ninth. Barros also ran short of fuel, but only a few yards from the finish line, running out completely on the slow-down lap so he had to abandon his bike. His team had anticipated the problem of unusually heavy fuel consumption, and topped him and Capirossi up after the sighting lap, so they started the warm-up lap from pit lane. Biaggi's crash was one of many during an afternoon when the rather featureless 2.97-mile Twin Ring Motegi circuit turned treacherous, short of grip so that for once the race average time was slower than last year. Red Bull Yamaha's Noriyuki Haga and Arie Molenaar Honda's Haruchika Aoki both fell in the 500cc race, and no less than 11 125cc riders bit the dust. There were only four fallers in the 250cc GP - but one of those crashes was very crucial, and potentially very serious, eliminating points leader Daijiro Katoh and his Telefonica MoviStar Honda and Aprilia's Marco Melandri, the pair disputing second place at the time. Melandri was flicked over the highside, and fell right in front of Katoh, who couldn't avoid running right into the fallen rider. It looked bad, but mercifully there were no serious injuries, with Melandri escaping with a concussion, and a broken bone in his right hand. This left the sneezing and sniffing flu victim Tetsuya Harada and his MS Aprilia to claim his third win of the year on a podium of invalids. Second went to Emilio Alzamora, stalking Jeremy McWilliams for almost the full race, then nipping past on the last lap. Alzamora was suffering from an affliction that paralyzed half his face, leaving him unable to blink his right eye; McWilliams's only problem was with too-soft front fork springs, making it impossible to fight back after the last-lap pass. The result cut Katoh's points advantage significantly, back to 24 points. "But he doesn't crash very often, and the championship position is not much changed," said Harada afterward. Derbi's Youichi Ui won his second home 125cc race in runaway style, but the crucial result was second place for Gilera-mounted Manuel Poggiali, pushed all the way by Daniel Pedrosa - with Toni Elias for once falling victim to his own aggression, with a massive highsider while challenging for the lead on the fifth of 31 laps. This gave the points lead back to Poggiali. "Elias was riding very hard, but I was able to get ahead and go by myself, which is my style. I don't like casino races," said Ui afterwards; while Poggiali said: "When I saw Elias fall, I decided second would be okay for me today." Elias blamed himself. "I got on the gas too early - but at least I will be okay to race in Australia," he said. It was a race of many crashes - 11 out of 35 starters took the dive, start- could have fought for the lead," he said. Roberts had been losing places in familiar fashion. "I find it hard not to be able to race to my ability," he said later. "Once the first three get past me and go away, it's very frustrating." He'd dropped to fourth behind Capirossi on lap six, spent the next six fending off Abe and his fast-closing teammate Gibernau, again racing the pre-Big Bang engine that he prefers, which allowed Ukawa and an up-and-down Nakano to close up. Then Abe finally got past, able to move clear of the group, but now too far behind Capirossi to think about challenging. The rest were fully engaged behind him, and Valencia winner Gibernau was another riding out of his skin, passing Roberts for the first time ever in a straight fight on lap 17. Soon afterward, Ukawa's Honda and Nakano's Yamaha did the same, but Gibernau - at maximum risk - managed to hold them off until lap 23. Ukawa passed him first, Nakano one lap later. But there were problems coming for the Spaniard, his bike coughing and stuttering on the final lap so that he dropped behind Roberts, crossing the line with an angry display of fists. "I rode my heart out, then I ran out of gas," he said later. By now, slow-starting Checa's chattering Yamaha had started to handle a little better as the fuel load lightened, and he nipped past Roberts on the last lap. Then came Suzuki wild card Yukio Kagayama, also improving as the race wore on and outpacing the stiff-and-sore Alex Criville's Honda at the finish. Some way back, Garry McCoy brought a bellowing Red Bull Yamaha home a lonely 12th - they'd fitted a different exhaust to cope with the problems of tire growth at speed, and it had split. ing with a double at the very first corner, and including a spectac'u]ar highside by Nobby Ueda in front of the pack shortly before Elias fell, luckily involving only one other rider, little Max Sabbatani. SOOcc GRAND PRIX Roberts Jr. took his usual lightning start and led through the first corner. By the second, however, Biaggi was in front, and by the third Rossi had also displaced the Suzuki. This pair pulled steadily away up front, while Barros was stuck behind Roberts, saying later: "His bike was accelerating faster than mine, so it was very difficult to overtake." Biaggi continued to lead, Rossi poised behind, biding his time. As ever, Biaggi was right on the limit, with huge lean angles and no margin for error - forced to over-ride a bike that is simply not the equal of the Honda. Disaster came at the end of lap six, in the fast corner before the final chicane. As before, the front wheel let go, and he slid across the pit entrance at a huge speed, the bike somersaulting to destruction. "Just like last time, I wasn't doing anything different from before," he said. "I used a 17-inch tire to try to get some form of advantage, but that had nothing to do with the crash. I was having to ride over the limit to stay ahead." It was hard not to feel sympathy. One lap earlier, Barros had finally managed to find a way past Roberts, under brakes for the right-hander before the first underpass beneath the banked oval that gives the Twin Ring its name. He was just 1.9 seconds behind Rossi, and by mid-distance he had cut the gap to less than 1.4 secondsin a relentless pursuit. Rossi pushed again to regain half-a-second, but it was only in the last three laps that Barros finally settled for second. "If I had made a better start, 1 cue I • n e _ 55 • OCTOBER 17,2001 7

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