Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Above) John Hopkins (21) once again had his best race of the season, this time taking an excellent seventh place. His strong performance also vaulted him Into 10th In the standings. Here, he leads Shinya Nakano (56), who almost passed him in the last comer on the last lap. front straight and ran away to his sixth victory in the seventh race of the season by better than two seconds. "Barros made an exciting race very difficult for me: glowed Rossi, who now leads the championship by more than 60 points before the halfway point of the 16-round 2002 MotoGP season. "Kenny Roberts and Max Biaggi were running a good pace at the start of the race, but when Alex [Barrosl came past, it was as though he was in another sport. When 1 saw him pulling away in front, I passed Kenny to stop him getting away. But he was riding so fast and so well that, at one point, I thought about giving up. There are some fast parts of this track where at 220km/h [136 mph] the four-stroke feels like a tractor compared with a 500. When I did get past him, I needed two perfect laps to get away." A crowd of more than 101,000 braved variable weather to watch him do so, winning a race on a day when threatening rain stayed away for the three main GP races. Barros' best times also came when he was trying to get back at Rossi, but it was not enough. He was pleased at least to have posed the strongest two-stroke threat of the year so far. "I was worried that the four-strokes might get in my way, so after two laps 1 tried to push very hard, to sur- prise everybody: Barros said. "After that, I knew Valentino was coming, and I knew he could pass me any time, so I just tried to keep a consistent pace. Even though I didn't win, it was a very good race, after a difficult season for the 500 riders." Telefonica MoviStar Suzuki's Kenny Roberts Jr. had led away, after successful tests following the last race, but was gradually swamped as Rossi, teammate Tohru Ukawa and the two Marlboro Yamahas of Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa came past, along with Barros and his two-stroke teammate Loris Capirossi, who was at the back of the leading group when he crashed at high speed following four of the scheduled 19 laps. The Italian rider broke his right wrist and will be out for at least the next two rounds. At the finish, Biaggi had faded from a fierce battle for third, with Checa holding the advantage, but Ukawa attacking forcefully into the cue I e last chicane. He forced Checa across the gravel on the second part of the corner, but came off even worse himself, hitting wet grass and failing off. "It seemed my bike was magnetic," joked Checa afterward. "I hit Rossi on the first lap, and Blaggi and somebody else before Ukawa. My bike is covered with paint, and my leathers need repairing." This left fourth for Biaggi, with Ukawa managing to restart his engine with the help of a push from a marshal, to cross the line fifth, less than a second ahead of Roberts. American rookie John Hopkins and his Red Bull Yamaha were a career-best seventh and second-best two-stroke, after both Protons of Jeremy McWilliams and Nobu Aoki retired with gearbox problems. Hopkins defeated experienced fellow 500cc riders Shinya Nakano and Norick Abe for the result. MS Aprilia's Marco Melandri did the victory wheelie for a third-successive 250cc GP after taking the lead from fast-starting Toni Elias and his Telefonica MoviStar Aprilia on the second lap and steadily drawing away. "I could have upped the pace if I'd needed to, but it wasn't necessary," said a confident Melandri. Elias hung on to second, his best perfonnance so far in his first year in the class, with factory Fortuna Honda rider Roberto Rolfo breaking free from the next group to close to within two seconds at the finish. Seb Porto's Yamaha was a season-best fourth, Blaggl (3) and Checa (partially hidden) fought throughout the entire race. Checa eventually got the best of Blaggl - finishing on the podium for the second-consecutive race, with Blaggl fourth. n e _ S • JULY 10. 2002 21

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