Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128620
"M y rear in termediate tire becam e a ha nd icap as th e track dried in the second p art of th e rac e," Rossi said. " W he n Lo r is [C ap i ro ssi ] and [M a x] B iag gi pa ssed m e I tr ied to stay with the m , b ut it w as im p oss i b le an d I d eci d ed t o t ak e as m an y p o int s as p os si bl e w i t h o u t t ak i n g too m an y ris ks ." G i b ern a u h ad gone w i t h a soft in te rmediate front and soft c ut slick rear. It briefl y k ept hi m at the fro nt on th e trac k , eve n th ough he was never better th an th ird in ag grega te ti me , and would eventua lly prov e his undo ing. "T oday t he k ey to wi nni ng the race was the t ire choice and I do n't th ink I made t he b est o ne," t he Sp ani ard said . "M y start at the first race wa s good bu t then at th e restart , when I was lead ing , I w as p ray ing for it to kee p raining . E ven just a li ttle ra in wou ld have helped m e. Instead, th e tra ck dried out and all the ri ders who had chos en re ar sl ic ks fi nishe d in front of me. " On the trac k it was Barros, Cr ivi ll e, G ibe r na u and Red Bull Ya m a h a WCM's Regis Laconi at the fro nt from lap ] ] on, Ba rr os mov in g to th e front of the pack as he and Cr iville co nt in ued to be in fron t on aggregate time . Lacon i had no tire troubles, h is problem was an off-t rac k exc ur sion in the first part of t he race wh ich put him well back on t ime for th e re-start. The bes t he cou ld do w as eighth on th e day. T he r a c e ca m e d own t o Barros agai nst Criville , with Criv ill e com ing into the second segment with over a two -seco nd m argin on Crivi lle . Ideall y Barros wou ld fi nish in front of Crivill e, b u t f i n i sh in g a ro u n d two seco n ds back wou ld ensure the win . T he way he wa s riding it was cl ear t h er e w a s n o eq u i voc at ing and he fought alm ost dow n to the last corner. " In the m id dle of the rac e th e track co m e s be tte r eac h l a p , " B arr o s b eg an , " so I st ay w it h A lex . I pass him so I try to catch Sete . I try j ust to pr et end to k eep thi s wa y so the last five, six lap s, th e track 's com p letely dry and th e fro nt t ire start to p ush a little bit on th e inte rmedia tes . A lex Shinya Nakano leads his teammate and eventual race winner Olivier Jacque in the 250cc Dutch Grand Prix. pa ssed m e and he tri ed to go a littl e bit more fast er. He take some ri sk s, al so, I th in k he c on ten t t o d o thi s. Tw o laps from th e finish he alm o st go over the tra ck ." Cr iv ille p assed Bar ros in t he las t co rner, but Barros didn't m in d. "He passed me in the l ast co rne r, b ut I n o t p ush ve ry h a r d o n the brak es, to m e it 's enough to almost fin ish the race, so the lead is okay ," he said. " To day was so di ffi cu lt t o w in beca use in the end , fi ve lap s before th e en d , I t ry t o go awa y, " Cr i v ill e said a ft er fi nish ing 2 .07 7 secon ds b a ck on aggrega te ti me . " I t h i n k when I try t his I was riding one second beh in d Ba rros , but I make a m istake an d it was so , so difficult and to o ris ky to do this . So I said , second it's okay ." Cap i ross i finished third b ehind Cr ivill e, st eadily movin g up afte r com ing off th e first lap of th e re- start in sixth and dropping as far do wn as ] ] th o That was before he began to tak e advantage of th e drying track and set one fa st lap aft er anothe r for th e second p a rt o f t h e ra c e, m a x xing o ut with a 2:04.42] with three laps to go. By the n he'd cl o sed t o within 3 .6 seconds of Criv ille and knocked it do wn to within eig ht-tenths at the end . " I thi nk today is a fantastic day for me bec au se after the warm -up th is morning I brok e my hand and I go to the Cl ini ca Mobile to see Dr. Cos ta ," Cap iross i beg an. " I ask to Clau dio, p lease I wan t to race here bec ause I like so mu ch this t rack and m y bike is wo rking so g ood here." Cap ir ossi said tha t h is hand began t o thro b d u r in g th e break b et w een races and in th e second seg m ent , but it did n 't slo w hi m down . "I start with I th ink a good com bi nation ; I fin i sh third for me be cause this conditi on is li k e a win for m e and ve ry emotio n and th ank you so much all peopl e th at work t od ay in th e Cli n ica Mobil e fo r Dr. Costa ," he said . Hondas have won the 500cc Dutch TT seven of the last eight years, incl udi ng the l ast six in a ro w . Th e ri de r who spoiled the party w as Su zu k i' s K ev in Schwantz , who won in 1993 , and whose As sen lap record from 199 ] is th e oldest standing ma rk in Grand Prix raci ng . No one seem ed to thin k it would fall , not even the Honda rid ers who domin at ed th e front row of 5 00cc qua lify ing. In his 35th 500cc start, Emerson Honda Pons' Lor is Capi rossi fi nally took his first pol e position in his th ird y ear in the 50 0c c cl ass. The tim e of 2:02 .058 was ov er half a seco nd fast er than the rest of the 20 -rid er field , which caused some concern among the other riders on the front row . "Obv iously, myself I' m n ot too happy to be where I'm at because Lori s [Capirossi] is half a second faster than every body and that's qu ite a bit in the places that he is faster, " Telefonic a MoviStar Suzu ki's Kenn y Roberts Jr. said aft er qualifying thi rd , just behind Rep sol YPF Hond a's A lex Criville. "So to be seco nd . third or fourth to me , it 's all the same. We'r e still half a second slower than Loris. I did m y ti me behind Ma x [Biaggi] . It doesn't m att er if Loris did hi s time behind somebody, he's still hal f a seco nd quic ker. We ca n im p rove the bik e and ju st chase Lori s around. I think he's the gu y to beat to morro w. I know there's three of us up here that ca n't do the lap times that we were do ing in qu alifying, so hop efully he' ll slo w down and we'll speed up a litt le." With its long straights and swo op ing curve s, th e 3.7 6-mile Circuit van Dren the is one of the fa stest and m ost challe ngi ng on th e Grand Prix calendar and Capi rossi was grateful that it suit ed his riding sty le. "It's good for m y styl e because it' s po ssible t o ride the bike lik e a 250 in this track , is not like 500, it' s poss ible to go faster ," said Capirossi, who' d won twi ce here on a 250 . Of m ore concern wa s the weath er. Prac tice ha d been run in wh at seem ed lik e all four seasons, with plenty of rain and chilling col d. T he race was, as always , a question ma rk , and no one was fully p repared. "I don 't know the weath er, becaus e it 's very difficult this, because I work so hard for th e g ood sett ing for the dry co ndition, " Capir ossi said . "T om orr ow might be wet, it m ight change everything ." . Sch w antz had set his time in the race , a 2:02.443, and Roberts Jr. didn 't th ink it would be broken. '" th ou ght this year for sure it'd go," Roberts Jr. said . "I don 't see it happen ing tomor row, unless it's th e first three or four laps of these guys. Last year I expected it to go , so ju st h ave t o wait and see. It is pos sible, but I don 't see it," Capirossi, like Criville and fourth fastest A lex Ba rros, also of Em erson Honda Pon s, were on m ostly 1999-spec ma ch inery , the sam e tha t Repsol YPF Honda's Tadayuki Ok ada had used to run away with last year's race. It had taken Cri ville some ti me to get to wh ere his m achin e work ed, and even lon ger for him to take full adv antag e of it. "A fter Jerez [the Spa nish GP at th e begi nn ing of Ma y] we fix th e bik e, we got the good sett ings , same as last year ," Criv ille said. At the next race in France he won his fir st of th e year. T he following GP at Mugello was , he said : " A di saster. I seize one bike ; I crash very fast. T he race was not good fo r m e. In Barcelona, all weeke nd it was rain ing [and he crashed in th e race ]. It's better to fo rget. But here , I feel co nfident like last year and everything seems ok ay ." Roberts Jr. wasn't worried about things he co uldn't con trol, like the weather, or whether or not to use a ] 6 5 -inch fron t tire; he didn't . What ma tt ered to him was gett ing the balance right on hi s Suzuki. "We haven't had to o much of a tire problem, but we still have a weight transfer prob lem , and when our bike uses the tires to a certain deg ree, the balance has to stay 50 -50 on the ti res, but we can't do that. Sometimes it's 60 -40 or 70 30 . There's situations tha t we can 't work on right now with the engine positions and stuff but we know what direction we have to go, j ust researc h, development and the time for the factory to resp ond. But again , I thin k that we just need to concentrate on we 're the first non-Honda up here and by no means are we out of the race tomorrow." Eme rson Honda Pons' Barros, who'd been on pole for th e two prev iou s GP's, cam e fourth fastest, like Roberts Jr., searching for the perfect balan ce . His problem was exacerbated by havin g spen t too m uch time in th e pits chasing problems and not eno ug h on th e track chasing times . "All weekend I can 't find the perfect setting," th e Brazilian said . "I had too m uch problem to day. I lost all th e session in th e morning to take out the problems I had. Also in the afte rnoo n I lost 40 m inu tes when I can 't fix the problems I have just in the last 20 m inutes. At that time I try to put on some tires. I make th e lap ti m e. I kn ow I can do a litt le bit m ore, but run out of tim e," T he second row w as led by Marlbor o Yamaha 's Ma x B iagg i, about fo urtenths behind Ba rros and .007 of a secon d in front of fellow Italian Val entino Rossi on the Nastro Azzurro Honda . Biaggi said that he shou ld be ab le to run at the front as did Rossi, who'd go tten a two from Barros for his best lap. "A part from Cap irossi , who did a fan tastic lap tim e, th e others are no t so far away," Rossi said . Seve nt h was last ye ar's wi nner O k ad a who tried the ] 6 .5- in ch fro nt , but th oug ht he 'd race with th e ] 7. "A lthough I still hold th e fastest lap here [in qu alifying] it was not po ssibl e for m e to go th at fast tod ay ," he said. Fellow J apanese rider Tetsuya Har ada was relegated to the eigh th spot on the grid afte r crashing his Aprilia RSW-2 500 in the fina l qua lifying session. "My number on e bik e had a bett er set -up, but. unfortunately , that was the one I crashe d," Harad a said. "I went just a litt le slower than I had done last year , but that was using qualifying tires, wh ereas today I used straight race tire so get th e ti me ." Back in ninth Ma rlb oro Yamaha's Carl os Checa said he was having a hard tim e holding his line wh ile on th e ga s. It was a bad place to be, co nsidering that he 'd g ive up 25 p oints to Rob erts J r. by c rashing in th e p revio us ra ce in Barcelona. cu e ' ... n e _ S • JULY 5,2000 9