Rossi forced to fight for first place in Catalunya heat
Added on Saturday, June 15th, 2002 by Carole Nash Editor
Rossi forced to fight for first place in Catalunya heat
With Max Biaggi starting the race from pole position, the Gran Premi Marlboro de Catalunya had always promised to be a closer race than the five previous rounds of MotoGP, which had seen the Honda RC211V victorious each time. This certainly proved to be the case, with home-rider Carlos Checa leading for much of the 25-lap encounter at the Circuit de Catalunya in the northern outskirts of Barcelona. However the outcome was much the same, despite Valentino Rossi being pushed all the way he claimed his fifth victory of the 2002 season in which he is defending the title.
The 90,000 plus crowd were egging on Checa every inch of the way, after he made the best of a seventh place starting position to take charge of the race from Ukawa on lap 2. With the Japanese rider on his tail, and Biaggi and Rossi scrapping for third spot, the battles which took place at Mugello a fortnight back had been resumed, and the public were gripped at the prospect of another classic.
The Catalan masses were in vocal mood, having earlier been treated to a lap of honour by the local hero Alex Criville. The 1999 500cc World Champion announced his definitive retirement from the sport earlier this year and he rode his prized Honda NSR for the final time around the track to a deafening noise.
Checa however, was forced to relinquish the lead to Ukawa on lap fourteen, and then lost out to Rossi; the two Honda machines returning to the head of the race as they have become accustomed to this year. The pair had already left Biaggi adrift, and Checa was soon to succumb to their power in the straights and lost touch with the front two. Finally, as Rossi took charge, Ukawa found it impossible to pass the Italian, hoping for a similar kind of mistake to the one that helped him to victory in South Africa.
The error was not forthcoming however, and Rossi was able to cross the line with nearly a second’s advantage, to take his fifth victory of the year and extend his lead in the championship. The 23 year-old remarked, “It was a very hard race because of the high temperatures. I want to thank my team for the job they did this morning, as they changed a lot of things with the set-up of the bike. Checa got off to a good start and was going well, and when I saw Biaggi behind me I decided to push hard. When I was at the front I couldn’t get away as the tyres were spent.”
With Biaggi comfortable in fourth place, Alex Barros took advantage of his team-mate Loris Capirossi’s run-off at the end of the lap to cement fifth. The Italian recovered from his excursion however, and was sixth with Roberts just behind him, Kato, Jacque and Hopkins trailing behind. A first lap coming together of three bikes had earlier seen Nakano, Vd Goorbergh and Abe crash out early on, with the latter limping round to rejoin but finishing just out of the points, while Gibernau crashed out on lap seven when in fifth place.
The battle for 250 supremacy rages on, with the podium today filled by the top three riders in the standings. Marco Melandri came out on top this time to take his third victory of 2002, having led every lap of the race. Behind him current championship leader Fonsi Nieto had held second for most of the 23 laps, but as the heat took its toll on his tyres a surging ride from Roberto Rolfo relegated him to third, with the Italian taking second place on the Honda. De Puniet and Battaini were fourth and fifth while Casey Stoner made an impressive comeback from being bumped on the first lap to take sixth.
Manuel Poggiali took his second consecutive win in the 125 class with another classy ride which extended his lead at the top of the standings. He took the win by just 0.019 seconds by virtue of his machine having the edge over a spirited Dani Pedrosa in the final dive for the line. Pedrosa himself had started out the brightest, but was reeled in by Poggiali and Ui, and when the Japanese rider fell nine laps from the end, it was always destined to be a duel to the line. With Pedrosa leading into the final bend Poggiali powered past him to take victory, with Steve Jenkner claiming his second podium of the year by finishing nearly ten seconds back in third.
