Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

World Championship Road Race Series Round S: Catalunyan Gnend Prix Nieto succumbed to Rolfo on lap 16 only to regain second under power down the straight, and to hang on for the next four laps. But he was battling front-tire slides, and it was only a matter of time before the Italian moved ahead, hanging on narrowly to the finish. De Puniet managed to get by Battaini, also having tire problems, and crossed the line on Nieto's back wheel. Battaini hung on to fourth. help against the better corner-exit speed of the Honda two-strokes, though Roberts stuck with them until he started to lose ground with seven laps left. By then, Barros' quirky choice of an ultra-soft tire had allowed him to get ahead of Capirossi, who then had a major excursion into the gravel, missing his braking point behind Barros, rejoining behind Roberts. Capirossi was quickly back ahead of Roberts, and finished eight seconds behind his teammate, and one-and-a-half ahead of the Suzuki. A fair way behind, Jacque had come through his four-bike crash unscathed (he amusingly described it as "a racing incident," having arrived way too fast at the corner and overtaken Abe on the inside curb), and was circulating alone until half-distance. Close behind, Aoki had narrowly avoided the carnage, only for his Proton KR3 to suffer another crankshaft failure on the second lap, to tour into the pits. This left Ryo, on the third Suzuki, to fall back into a gang including Hopkins, McWilliams (on the second Proton), Laconi's four-stroke MS Aprilia and Kato's NSR Honda. The Japanese rider moved through by lap six, and then started to close a six-second gap on Jacque. He caught up on lap 20 and was three seconds clear by the finish. This left a disparate gang of toughs locked in combat, Laconi in front until lap nine, when his tires started sliding, leaving Hopkins to take over, with McWilliams crawling all over Ryo and the others in the corners and getting left on the straights. He was racing the new chassis, even though lap times were better on the old one, and found to his great relief that the tire-pumping problem that had plagued him was solved by the radical change. Not the power deficit, however. At the finish, Hopkins was over a second ahead of Ryo, McWilliams five seconds back, and Laconi another five, having been overtaken at the finish by Tetsuya Harada's Honda. 20 JUNE 26, 2002' III U III I e Yamaha-mounted Pere Riba was close behind, with Abe 16th, two laps down. The luckless Alex Hofmann had been running .behind Riba until the very last lap, when his bike stopped dead at the end of the back straight, and he did not finish. Rossi continues to draw clear in the championship, still the only rider in three figures with 147 points. Ukawa has 97, Capirossi 65, Biaggi and Checa are equal on 56, with Abe dropping behind on 52. 250cc GRAND PRIX Locatelli was fast off the line, but Melandri led into turn one. Two corners later, Nieto forced Locatelli way out wide as he dived into second, followed by teammate Elias, and Locatelli lost several places, then continued to drop back until it ended in a crash on lap six. Nieto kept Melandri more than honest, while Battaini was also moving through forcefully. His first attempt to take Elias was firmly repulsed, but soon afterward he was through, and on lap six there were three in the leading group. Now Melandri upped the pace, and gradually opened a gap on Nieto, Battaini also falling away a little. At the same time, Rolfo had recovered from a mediocre start, picking his way past Porto, who retired soon afterward, then tangling de Puniet, who was also intent on making his way toward the front group. They were still together when they caught up with Elias, fading fast with a sliding rear tire, but still not making himself easy to overtake. When de Puniet attacked firmly into the first corner at the start of lap nine, Elias simply held the inside line, pushing the Frenchman wide and giving Rolfo the chance to get past both of them. De Puniet succeeded a lap later, but by now Rolfo had escaped and was setting about Battaini. By lap 15, he was through and hounding Nieto, and a couple of laps later de Puniet had tagged on the back. n e _ s The next excitement came from Stoner, who had been left on the line at the start. But he was circulating almost as fast as the leaders, picking up place after place until he arrived in ninth at half-distance, with Shahrol Yuzy hanging onto the Aprilia's back wheel. He settled for a while, but then observed that the trio ahead - Elias, Alzamora and Matsudo - was tripping each other up somewhat, and a gap of more than four seconds was gradu- Qualifying was torrid in every sense of the word. Blazing sunshine sent track temperatures soaring, chewed up tires and tempers . and came up with a small surprise after a blazing finish, when the order up top changed time and again as one after another rider put together their best efforts. The heat kept speeds lower than expected, and lap times higher· for the first time this year, pole position was slower than Rossi's 2001 pole on a twostroke, on an all-four-stroke front row. The biggest surprise came when GP rookie John Hopkins put his Red Bull Yamaha on pole with just four minutes to go - and though the blue two-stroke with the green rider was inevitably pushed down to sixth overall, on the second row, by the end of the session, it was still a remarkable performance, and he ended up with only one two-stroke ahead of him. A smaller surprise was that it wasn't Valentino Rossi on pole. for the first time all year. and it wasn't even a Honda. Max Biaggi (above) pushed through right at the end to claim the position by an impressive three lOths - the Yamaha M1's first pole. Teammate Carlos Checa tried hard to join or even beat him. but had run into unexpected tire problems and crashed instead. "It was only one lap, but it was a beautiful lap, even though the tires had already started to go away," said Biaggi. He'd been chasing front-end settings all weekend. looking for lighter steering and more traction, and in spite of the time, he was far from sure how it would last full-race distance in the heat. The same applied to everybody, including second-placed Tohru Ukawa, who had been faster than Rossi the day before as well, for the first time. The difficulty was traction, he said, all the more so if it would be hot tomorrow. "Tire choice will be crucial," he said. Another surprise came from Sete Gibemau, at home on the upgraded Suzuki and flying. He'd been second on the first day, following Loris Capirossi, but managed to sustain the pace without a guide on Saturday to qualify third, the bike's first front row. "' don't want people to think it is just because it's my home GP," the Catalunyan resident said. "The whole package is getting better - the new Michelins, the engine parts, the work of the team. But third will be very difficult in the race tomorrow." Only then came Rossi, who had been struggling for grip for two days and whose final attempt at pole just wasn't good enough. "I can control the bike when it is sideways... but I need to go forwards," he said. "We started again from zero with the setup today, and now it's a bit better. But it will be a hard race tomorrow. I'l Biaggi had a margin of three tenths, and while the rest of the front row was close, there were. for once, only seven riders within a second of pole. Capirossi was almost two 10ths off Rossi after setting provisional pole on Friday. "The two-stroke was better here than I expected, but today was more difficult," he said. "All in all, I am satisfied, and I will give everything tomorrow." Hopkins was alongside, clearly delighted with his best-ever qualifying position, in only his sixth GP. "Obviously, it helps that I know the track, and the Dunlop qualifying tires were brilliant." he said. "' just put my head down and went for it, and though I made some small mistakes in the first two corners, I pushed really hard in the last section. The testing here in March certainly helped. and I know my way around the next few tracks. so I think we can continue at this level." A disappointed Checa was alongside, after challenging for pole before the pace got so hot at the end. HIs final effort was not impressive, with a rear tire that "felt strange," but for some reason he kept pushing on in spite of poor section times and fell off on the last comer, luckily unhurt. Kenny Roberts Jr. was alongside, drawing comfort from the fact that he could do consistent laps, and his fast one had been done mid-session. "We got a bit over-fussy with setup, but I've been working on trying to anticipate what the track will be like. It gets pretty hot and slippery. There's two or three people ahead of me who just did one fast lap, and when the race gets spread out 1"11 be ahead of them," he said. Alex Barros led an all-two-stroke row three from Shinya Nakano, Olivier Jacque and Jeremy McWilliams, who was in a dilemma over whether to use the slower but more tirefriendly new chassis or the old one; Regis Laconi's Aprilia led row four frnm Jurgen van den Goorbergh, battling with the hottest conditions yet on the V-four Honda on the new Bridgestones; Daijiro Kato and Norick Abe, who was fully 1. 7 seconds down on pole. Wild card Akira Ryo's Suzuki led the fifth row. the Japanese rider battling to come to terms with Michelins, when almost all of his experience has been on Dunlops, which he uses at home in Japan where he is race-developing the GP bike. Nobuatsu Aoki's Proton was alongside, then Red Bull Yamaha's latest replacement for Garry McCoy, Alex Hofmann, in his first outing on a 500. A baffled Tetsuya Harada was 20th, with Pere Riba the last of the 21 entrants.

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