World Championship Road Race Series
Round 8: Sachsenring
(Right) Reigning 250cc World Champion Marco Melandri (33)
was strong early in the race but would later crash out.
(Below left) Hayden (69) races ahead of Shinya Nakano (56),
Olivier Jacques (19) and Jeremy McWilliams (991, who was
on the Proton KR3 two-stroke. Of these, McWilliams
started on the front row but wound up 12th after getting
a bad start.
The track is notoriously hard for
passing, but plenty of people man-
MOTOGP
After first-corner crashes in both the
smaller classes, the full MotoGP field
made it through unscathed, Rossi
leading the Ducatis of Capirossi and
Bayliss and already starting to move
away as the rest sorted themselves
out. By the end of the first short lap,
Gibernau had pushed passed Bayliss
to third; Melandri was fifth with
McWilliams behind him after his
best-ever Proton start.
"In the last two laps, I thought I
could win,» said Stoner, a 17 -year-old
Australian. "But in the last two corners Alex came underneath me, and I
had to struggle to get second."
Donington winner Hector Barbera
was forced to leave the party after
leading the early laps. He had jumped
the start and was called in to the
pits for a stop-and-go penalty. He
re-joined to finish 14th.
10 AUGUST 6. 2003'
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aged to do it to the cautious Blaggi,
as he dropped back to 10th. Aoki
was behind him, struggling on toohard tires, and he stayed there as
Biaggi started to disprove the theory
the other way, working his way back
up again over the next laps, while
Melandri also got past Capirossi for a
run in third until lap six. Then Bayliss
took the place, and two laps later
Biaggi was also past Melandri, breaking the lap record as he closed on
Bayliss.
The Australian typically proved
hard to pass - on lap 10 Biaggi got
ahead twice only to be slammed back
again at the very next opportunity. It
wasn't until lap 13 that Biaggi did
(Above, left to right) Rossi, Gibemau
and Bayliss on the MotoGP podium.
get by for sure - only to crash five
corners later, losing the front at
speed.
"When you fall, it is always the
responsibility of the rider," a disappointed Biaggi said later. "But I hardly know what happened, but at that
point at the track the front suspension had been giving me problems all
weekend."
Up front, Gibernau had been chipping away at Rossi's lead: 2.3 seconds on lap five, 1.9 the next lap, 1.8
the next, then 1.5 ... and so on. By
half distance, it was down to .77 of a
second. and he was still getting
closer. And at the start of lap 21
