Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

nailed Biaggi into the stadium section. Biaggi was tougher than the others and dived back underneath into the next turn. Rossi would have nothing of it, slamming straight back ahead on the exit. Only Gibernau remained, and Rossi had him the next time they got to turn one. In just one lap, he had moved from sixth to second, past some of the finest riders in the world. It was an awesome lap. The last drama came on the next Ukawa (11) keeps it low and tight in front of Hayden (69) and Colin Edwards (partially hidden). Edwards' Aprilla broke early in the race. with the first four in the same order. They seemed to be breaking away as the Gauloises Yamahas cost the pursuers time, but by lap seven Checa and Nakano were ahead of both Jacque and Barros, and they closed up somewhat, with Barros now losing ground fast in seventh, Ukawa behind him, then Hayden ahead of Bayliss, who had moved through in determined fashion from 14th on the first lap. Soon after half distance, Biaggi suddenly dropped back by more than a second as Rossi upped the pace. Capirossi went with him and was leaning on him impressively. Then on lap 15, Rossi ran wide on a tight corner, and Capirossi dived inside. This was the lead-up to the drama that turned a close but somewhat processional race into an epic, as Rossi narrowly avoided hitting the back of the Ducati at the notorious fourth corner at the top of the hill, picking up quickly and running at speed over the gravel and grass. Now things were really interesting. Biaggi was still less than a second adrift but had his hands full with Gibernau, who had started to lean on him hard. He got ahead on lap 20, when the gap to Capirossi was just 1.3 seconds, but the Spaniard was slower, and the interval began to open up by a couple of tenths a lap. Close behind, Nakano was continuing the push and probe at Checa, without actually being able to get ahead. This was a high-class pack of riders, all giving their utmost. But the real focus was on Rossi, far and away the fastest man on the track. He was five seconds behind Nakano as they finished lap 17, less than four the next time around, and still more than a second at the end of lap 21. The speed he was riding, however, just shows how hard the others were trying. The massacre began on lap 23. He took Nakano under braking for the first corner, dived under Checa into the tight downhill turn five, then Garry McCoy may have been the last finisher, but at least the Sultan of Slide had fun burning his rear Dunlop off. time around, when Biaggi tried to follow past Gibernau to chase Rossi to the finish - going too fast into the last left hand corner. He fell off, but luckily his engine kept running. Another good run, if less dramatic, came from Tamada, who had been slow off the line to finish the first lap 15th. He moved steadily through, making it into the top lOon lap 17, then dispatching Barros and Hayden by the finish for. seventh behind a lackluster Ukawa. Rookie Kiyonari also did well, moving to 11th, leaving Noriyuki Haga and Marco Melandri behind him. Biaggi was two seconds behind Melandri. Hopkins had a hard afternoon, still stiff and sore from his heavy crash with Kenny Roberts Jr. in Italy, and battling a Suzuki that didn't want to turn, requiring even more body language than usual to get it round. Aoki soldiered on, happy just to get the Proton to the finish, though his lap times were far from disgraceful. "The engine lost power after about 10 laps, but then it stayed constant to the end," Aoki said. Garry McCoy was a distant last, filling his afternoon with wild tiresmoking slides on the sole remaining Kawasaki and getting almost as big a cheer from the crowds as Rossi. "It wasn't helping me go fast, but they seemed to enjoy it," McCoy said. Rossi extended his title lead still further, to 135 points to Gibernau on 88. Biaggi dropped to third, on 85, then comes Capirossi with 61, Barros 54 and Ukawa 52. 250cc GRAND PRIX Poggiali led away, but there was some sorting out to do, with de Puniet leading at the end of lap one, from Porto, Poggiali and Nieto. Franco Battaini was right behind, then Debon and West. Nieto took over, de Puniet on his back wheel and regaining, then Poggiali, with a gap of a second quickly opening up as Porto lost ground, delaying Battaini, West and Matsudo. But West wasn't for hanging around now he had a bike he could lean on, and by lap five he was up to fourth, although 1.8 seconds behind the leading trio. The gap opened up gradually over the next laps but then closed up somewhat by the tenth, with Poggiali and de Puniet slowing each other somewhat as they swapped back and forth up front. It seemed then that Nieto had lost touch with them, battling with a sliding front tire, but he too closed up again as they passed half distance. Lap 13 was unlucky for Poggiali, who had been troubled by overheating and gearshift problems. Then an electronic failure meant his race was over. The first three closed right up toward the finish, with Nieto shadowing de Puniet and West less than a second behind as they started the last lap. Or, as Nieto thought, the secondto-last lap. De Puniet knew better and forced the pace. Nieto stayed with him and amazingly failed to attack into the stadium section. Thus de Puniet won, with Nieto dismayed to see the checkered flag from a quarter of a second behind. To blip, or not to blip - that is the question. With the old two-strokes, it hardly mattered. With negligible engine braking and no valves to tangle, you would regularly see riders just stamping down the gearbox, the engine revving to the heavens. Unkind to the machinery, but the gearbox only has to last 45 minutes or so before it can be rebuilt, and doing it this way frees the attention for the more exacting task of braking to the maximum and balancing the grip of the front tire on the edge of letting go, between slowing the bike down and tuming in to hit the ape". It's all different with a four-stroke, with a huge amount of technical attention focused on the throttle-closed phase, and riders fighting fishtail slides as well as doing all the above. "You really don't want to be blipping. The control of brake pressure is vitally important,. and if you also have to move your right hand at the same time, it just makes it more difficult," explains technical guru Warren Willing, formerly with Team Roberts then Suzuki, now with KTM. Rider Troy Bayliss doesn't agree. "I blip - because that's what you get used to riding Supersport and Superbike. At least I think I blip - if I'm not, I'm not aware of it." Stand by the track at a comer entry. and you can hear vast differences among the bikes; with the various systems used to cut engine braking. Some have a built-in blipping program, connected to the gear - the opposite of the familiar quick-shift system for upward changes, which cuts the ignition briefly so the rider can hold the throttle open. The Suzuki GSV-R is particularly aggressive in this respect: the riders' right hands quite still, the exhaust blaring briefly to mark each backshift. The Ducatis on the other hand are making such a general burble that you can barely hear the bac.kshift, the slipper clutch instead seeming to keep the revs almost constant. The Yamahas are different again - no blipping audible, but the backshifts marked by the exhaust note, which has a curious flat sound. They won't explain why, but general thinking is that they have some sort of a decompression system, perhaps lifting exhaust valves in one or more cylinders. The Honda. of course, just makes it iook easy, with a mild blip audible. Back to Bayliss for the final word and a rather dismissive attitude toward the software that is designed to do the work for the rider. "When you are riding, you are the engine management system." II: U II: I e n e vv s: • JUNE 25,2003 19

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