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VOLUME 59 ISSUE 30 JULY 26, 2022 P119 races with it [1993 American Grand Prix, 1994 Australian Grand Prix]. So, eventually it got there. But, when I was on it, it wasn't there, for sure." Lawson notes "no complaints" with the Cagiva chassis, the team experimenting with electronic suspension throughout the 1992 season as well as persisting with carbon-fiber technology for the swingarm that was first pioneered in the 1990 season with Randy Mamola and Ron Haslam, but the engine was the weak point. "The engine was super heavy, really heavy," Lawson says. "It didn't have acceleration, but it had top speed. It had the same top speed as the Yamaha, but it just took a lot of time to get there. "It didn't have a lot of bottom or middle. It needed more of that. They kind of put everything on the top-end. I wouldn't say it was hard to ride or peaky, it just didn't have what it should have." The ninth round of the 1992 championship in the former Eastern Bloc country of Hungary brought with it typically inclement weather, making the tight and twisty nature of the Hungaroring —not to mention all the Armco that lined the track—all the more treacherous. Class sophomore Doug Chan- dler, on the Lucky Strike Suzuki, had the bit between his teeth and took the fastest time on Friday after switching to a rear slick right at the end of the session as the spattering of rain gradually dried out. Not much was thought of it at the time as there was still the matter of Satur- day qualifying to get through, but Chandler fooled everyone by doing the exact same thing—this time in the dry—to rocket to the first pole of his young GP career. Lawson qualified seventh on the blood red Cagiva and would need a miracle if he was to catch his young compatriot in the race proper. The race was red flagged after one lap when rain drenched the circuit, the field rushing back to the pits to throw full wets on at a time when you could run wets, slicks, intermedi- ates or... "I just remember being on the line and I told my mechanic, 'We've got to do something different than everybody else, because we're probably going to get our butt kicked anyway,'" Lawson said. "Everybody had cold wets, and I said, 'Let's put cut slicks on.' Ago [Cagiva Team Manager Giacomo Agostini] was yelling at me, 'You can't do that! You can't do that!' I told him to piss off. We put them on." What followed looked like a step very much in the wrong direction. Although Lawson briefly led off the line, Randy Mamola, also in his final GP season, quickly took the lead on his wet-shod Budweiser Yamaha, with Kevin Schwantz up to second, from Wayne Rainey and Chandler. The young Californian Chan- dler was on a mission, first pass- ing Rainey, Schwantz and closing a six-second gap down on Mamola to rocket into the lead. Meanwhile, Lawson tumbled down the order to seventh. "I thought, 'Oh, man, I really screwed up,' because it started to rain pretty good in the begin- ning," Lawson says. "It was still really wet. That's why everybody was on wets. Then I thought, 'Well, if it dries out.' But a quarter of the way into it, it was still really Lawson's win was Cagiva's first in 12 years of trying.