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World Championship Road Race Series Round 15: Malaysian Grand Prix by bit. He never did get close enough Their departure left McWilliams to to pass, however. draw slowly away from Matsudo, the Excitement in the early stages came from a blinding ride by Ulsterman battling with chatter, and at the end "having to ride the 250 like Malaysian rider Shahrol Yuzy on the a 500, sliding out of all the corners." Petronas Yamaha, determined to give Locatelli was having one of the his sponsors and home fans a good more spirited rides of his 250 career, showing. On lap two, he was an forging through from a mediocre unprecedented fifth, ahead of Rolfo, start, 11 th on lap one, to catch Jeremy McWilliams and teammate McWilliams on the fifth lap, passing Matsudo. On lap three, to nobody's him quite easily then pulling away. surprise, he fell off. By half distance, he was catching Rolfo had also slid off a couple of Nieto fast, which spurred the corners earlier, running to remount and . . . . _II . . . (1S) c...... Alea 8lInos (4) and AI_ CrIvllle In . . eoocc - . 1'tIer tInI8hed In the same order • slllth, _ . . . . and sItIhtIl_psctlvely. Yamaha rider forced to keep pushing by a persistent Jose Luis Cardoso, who finished less than two tenths behind. Then a long gap before a lonely Anthony West, again by miles the best twin - he'd been ahead of Nobuatsu Aoki when the latter retired after seizing at the end of the straight after six laps. Abe was 13th, another 20 seconds behind, and there was a yawning 40-second gap to the Shell Advance pair, who'd been battling all race, Brendan Clarke just managing to fend off Leon Haslam by less than a tenth over the line. Kurtis Roberts had a dire first GP, crashing the Proton on the third lap while lying 18th. "I did nothing different, but the front folded. I put a lot of weight on the front, and we just didn't have enough time to get the bike set for my style," he said. Veneman also crashed out, and Stigefelt retired to the pits, leaving just 15 finishers. Rossi is now on target to join Agostini and Doohan with more than 11 wins in one season .' the record is held by Doohan with 13 in 1997. He obviously leads the title chart by miles, having clocked up 300 points. The interest is on second place, 8 OCTOBER 31,2001 • cue. e where non-scorer Biaggi has 203 and Capirossi is on 199. Barros has 169, and Nakano is even safer now in fifth on 148, to Abe's 127. 250cc GRAND PRIX Not a complicated race, at least up front. Katoh led into the first corner, and the second, and the third. And so on. It was a fine performance of sustained on-the-limit riding, although short of Nakano's 2000 record, and a magni{icent demonstration of concentration, control and skill. It wasn't an exciting race, however, and once again Katoh made the others look wanting. Harada did just the same, following Katoh along at an ever-increasing distance, with Alzamora working hard to stay on his tail until he slid off after eight laps. Nieto had been behind him from the start, and inherited third. Then a flutter of excitement as he started to close a two-second gap on Harada bit Kurtis Roberts had a rough _kend on his one-off ride on his father's Proton KR3. He crashed on the tint lap of qualifying on Friday and then crashed on the third lap of the race after losing the front, citing a lack of set-up time with the bike as the likely culprit. n e _ s Spaniard on. The 125cc champion rejoining stone last, to embark on a splendid display of his own as he sliced through toward the points, and finally' closed right up, but had lost touch slightly by the final lap. McWilliams was 15 seconds adrift on the last lap - into the top 10. at the end; another 10 seconds saw dJDD DliwD'f!J; dJDD 7]{fiJ@ 11tJ[JiJf)@ Both practice days were similar - a damp start to free training in the moming, then baking heat in the aftemoon. This left everybody scratching for more time and more laps, with several riders complaining that they still had plenty of testing left to do. Not among them Loris Capirossi, who set the fastest-ever officially timed lap of Sepang on the first afternoon - good enough to keep him on pole for a fourth time this year even though he was one of several riders not to improve on the second day. "Because it was damp this moming, I spent the aftemoon endurance-testing tires. Then I put on a soft tire at the end ... but it didn't work out," he said, happy enough that he'd already proved his potential. The position had come under severe threat in the closing minutes of the final session from new champ Valentino Rossi - right up until the last corner. Rossi was flying, havjng solved earlier set-up problems, and was the fastest man through he first three sections. Then on the last comer, a tight hairpin, he ran wide and over the curb. But he kept it open and clicked into second place. "The rear tire will be a problem in the race," he said. "The comers are very long, and when you are banked over for such a long time, the edge of the tire gets very hot. You get big slides accelerating off the corners." Max Biaggi was third, the times very close, also on his first-day time. His hopes of improvement were scuppered when he crashed with 20 minutes of the last session remaining - yet another carbon copy of the front-wheel-slide lowsider that has become something of a trademark. "I picked the bike up and rode it home, and when it was ready I went out again ... but my confidence was not so good," he explained. Final front man Garry McCoy had been 11 th until his last lap of the session, when he vaulted up to fourth. "I was held up on my fast lap by Norick Abe, which cost me a bit of time," he complained afterward. "But our ra<:e set-up feels strong, and I did the time on my race tire though J only have two to choose from, which is my usual choice of tires." McCoy and his team remain unimpressed with Michelin's reluctance to bring the ultra· soft compounds he prefers. Alex Barros also crashed on Saturday, ul)hurt, but costing him vital time and putting him on his spare bike. He led the second row, eight-tenths off.poIe. "I needed more time," he said. "There are still some details we have to fix ... but it's not bad," he said.. Shinya Nakano was alongside, also complaining of time lost due to a freak electrical problem at the start of the final session. "Once we'd sorted that our, there wasn't any time to try very much," he said. He also failed to improve on his Friday time. Then came his teammate Olivier Jacque, once again riding with impressive aggression. "I rode really hard to make sure I stayed on the second row," he said. Sate Gibernau made a huge improvement on the second day after switching from a l7-inch rear to the otherwise universal choice of a 16.5. "The tire works better, but chatters badly, and that gets worse as the tire wears. I have to decide tonight which will be better for the race." His Suzuki teammate Kenny Roberts Jr., one place down, was the other l7-inch user, but also switched in the final session, baffled that he couldn't reproduce his previous times on his preferred 17-incher. "The results are the opposite of what we've experienced here before," he said (he is the lap record holder, and double race winner). "Michelin suggested in the last session that J try the 16.5, and it felt like a 17-jnch, with grip. Now we have to go a completely different route to get the bike set up for tomorrow." Norick Abe was next, then Repsol teamsters Alex Criville and TohTu Ukawa, l.4-seconds off pole and battling for grip· Ukawa made a sensational save from a big slide in the last session. Marlboro Yamaha's Carlos Checa led row four, well off form. 'We've tried various things, but I just doh't feel good on the bike," he said. Nori Haga was alongside, battling to find front grip, then Jurgen van den Goorbergh - a doubtful starter after suffering concussion in a heavy faU; with Aoki's twin completing row four. Jose Luis Cardoso was next, then Kurtis Roberts, in his first-ever SOD-class ride. and his first time at the track. He crashed the Proton on his first lap of Friday's timed session, caught out by the time-lag and sudden grip of carbon brak;es while pondering a dutch-slip problem, but had picked up the pace impressively on day two, in just one dry session. "We haven't got the bike adjusted to my style yet - if we can do that tomorrow, I hope I can be up among the four-cylinders," he said. Anthony West was next, with Veneman, Haslam, Stigefelt and Clarke completing the 23-strong field.