GP2000ound4_jerez

Max Biaggi touched what looked like McCoy on the warm-up lap and binned it. His Yamaha sat there quietly burning before the fire marshals put the small flames out. Biaggi got a lift back to pit lane to pick up his 2nd bike in the aim of starting from pit lane.

The mess made by the fire extinguishers caused the race start to be held up while the fire marshals tried to clear the spent fire retardant off the track. But Max didn't think he should start from pit lane so jumped on his 2nd bike and rode straight back on to the grid. The Spanish crowd chanted 'out, out' continuously in Spanish.

Max had the rules on his side - because he made the grid before they were under starting orders it was declared that he could take his original position on the grid after starting the 2nd warm-up lap from pit lane.

So around 15 minutes later they set off on another warm-up lap with Biaggi starting that lap from pit lane. Biaggi was allowed to take up his pole position for the start.

After an incident free warm up lap (this time) the race got underway with Roberts in the lead, followed by Rossi, Barros and Checa. Barros passed Rossi for 2nd - around a lap later Rossi took the 2nd position back. Roberts was looking good and had around half a second on the field by the end of lap 1. McCoy in 7th.

As they commenced lap 2 the order was - Roberts, Rossi, Barros, Checa, Okada. Roberts had a decent lead and recorded a 1m 44 second lap on lap 2. Okada attempted a pass on Checa during lap 3 but had his nose wiped as Carlos turned in across the front of him which nearly sent Okada off the track, but the Japanese Honda rider kept it upright and only lost a few places. McCoy up to 5th. Biaggi back to 16th and possibly having problems with his 2nd bike.

Criville took Okada for 6th and was starting to look dangerous as he closed on McCoy - especially on corner entry. McWilliams came from nowhere to slot it past Criville for that 6th position.

Who would have guessed that the Ulsterman would have been consistently faster than his more fancied team-mate Harada thus far this season. Criville got him back but McWilliams immediately stuck it under him again. Biaggi back in the pits to retire.

McCoy was obviously trying hard as he was sometimes getting bounced out of the seat when trying to get the power down. McWilliams started showing a wheel to Garry every now and then. McCoy really needed to get a move on and clear out from this group. Criville got back past McWilliams.

Roberts led by over 3 seconds by lap 5 - from Rossi, Barros, Checa and McCoy. Kenny was on fire and broke Kevin Schwantz's long standing lap record, he looked untouchable. Criville started to challenge McCoy for 5th. Roberts is way out in front with the Rossi, Barros and Checa group 4 seconds back. Then another gap back to McCoy, Criville, Okada and a slightly fading McWilliams.

On lap 8 Criville pushed McCoy back to 6th but the duo were still 9 seconds behind race leader Roberts. Rossi still led the 2nd, 3rd and 4th pack but they were now 4.5 seconds down on Kenny. Checa took Barros for 3rd and started setting up Rossi for a pass.

By lap 10 Roberts had a 5.7 second lead over the 2nd pack with a further 5 seconds back to Criville and McCoy in 5th and 6th respectively.

Checa stuck it up the inside of Rossi on lap 11 and immediately pulled out a little bit of space over Rossi and Barros. Barros also snuck it under Rossi a few corners later. Roberts stretched his lead to 6.2 seconds.

McCoy attempted the most ridiculous and out of control pass on Criville that was hugely entertaining - but unfortunately he lost some time gathering it back in before putting his head down and chasing again.

Rossi got back under Barros for 3rd on lap 13 but Checa had cleared out from them a little. Criville and McCoy had made up quite some ground on Rossi and Barros and looked to possibly have the speed to catch them before race end. McWilliams unfortunately dumped it in the gravel at this point of the race.

Roberts shook his hand violently as he passed his pit to commence lap 16 of 26 which possibly indicated that there could be a problem with his RGV 500? This would be disastrous if he was to be foiled by machinery failure after clearly dominating this race. McWilliams crashed out at this stage of the race.

Umbrellas then started to be unfolded around the track which pointed to some drizzle around the circuit. This may have been the reason why Roberts had been shaking his hand as he passed the pits. The race was red flagged with 9 laps to go. Roberts clearly started celebrating but there was some confusion over whether enough laps were completed to declare him the winner?

The Spanish crowd responded to Kenny's celebrations by throwing cans - a chorus of discontent rippled through the stands. The results were still not declared by the organisers - but there was obviously no doubt in Kenny's mind that he was the race winner and the race was run. Kenny pulled in to the pits expecting to be sent to the podium arena - only to be disappointed when told that the race would be re-started for them to run the remaining laps of the race. Kenny obviously had not completed enough laps for the race to be declared finished!

It looked as though Kenny's confusion had been caused by his pit board man holding his finger up to indicate a 1 - which I took as an indication that Roberts had to complete one more lap for the race to be declared run if stopped. Kenny obviously took this to mean that he was number 1 and it was okay to stop the race.

The weather and tyre choice may decide the winner of this drama filled race. The riders have to try and judge the weather which at this point in time was only very lightly drizzling. Slick, cut slick, intermediates or full wets ?

They now have a few minutes to get ready for their 30 minute wet session before re-starting the race a further 5 minutes after the finish of the wet session. Kenny had a 5.5 second lead when the race was stopped but a wrong tyre choice combined with changeable weather could easily have that lead eaten up in a couple of laps let alone the 9 they will have to catch him. I mention this as the final race result would be decided on aggregate times between the two parts of the race. The 1st dry part and the yet to be run 2nd part that was declared wet.

Only the 17 riders that were still circulating when the race was stopped get to start the 2nd wet leg of the race.

Roberts led them away again at the re-start, closely followed by Checa, then a little further back Okada and Barros. A few corners in to the action Checa stuck it under Roberts and immediately started opening quite a gap. Carlos had a 1.2 second lead (on the track) from Roberts by the end of lap 1 of this 2nd leg. McCoy crashed but attempted to re-mount and carry on in an effort to score some points.

At the start of lap 3 Checa was still out in front and had closed down Roberts' aggregate lead down to only 2.5 seconds from the 5.5 seconds that it was before the start of this 2nd, wet, leg of the race. Barros had gone backwards through the field. Order on the track - Checa, Roberts, Criville. On aggregate Roberts now had only a 1.3 second lead.

Criville passed Roberts on lap 4 of this second leg but will have to pull out a lot of time on Roberts to put himself in front of him after aggregating the times.

As they crossed the line to start the aggregated lap 21 of the 26 the race order was; on the track - Checa, Criville, Rossi ; on aggregate time - Roberts, Checa, Rossi.

Criville caught and passed Checa with 4 laps to go and was closing up to Rossi for 3rd position on aggregate time. Criville was doing some pretty spectacular rear wheel steering at parts but Checa remained with him. Kenny was holding the gap to Checa and still held the lead on aggregate time by 1.6 seconds with 3 laps to go.

Checa clearly had 2nd position wrapped up but he would have to pull his finger out in order to get some more time on Roberts if he was to close down that aggregate gap. Roberts was holding station a few seconds behind Checa on the track but still held the lead by 1.6 seconds on aggregate time. Rossi has put on a burst of speed to try and get back his 3rd position from Criville on aggregate time.

Checa took 3 tenths out of Roberts' lead on the penultimate lap and either Roberts will have to make a mistake or Checa will have to pull something out of the bag to take the win. Criville is hanging it out everywhere and exiting the corners in lovely controlled slides.

Roberts won the race by 8 tenths of a second on aggregate time from Checa.

Jacque led the field away from Waldmann who stuck right on the Frenchman's tail right through the 1st lap. Nakano hit the dirt early in the race but managed to re-join later at the back of the field in the hope of picking up a point.

Waldmann hit the lead a few laps later and by lap 6 had a 2 second lead over Katoh, Ukawa, Jacque, West and Melandri.

West went past Jacque a few laps later in to 4th. It looked as though he was being held up by his team-mate Ukawa for a little while before Ukawa got his 2nd wind and went forward to fight with Katoh for 2nd.

By lap 11 Waldmann had over 4 seconds on Katoh in 2nd place who was then followed by Ukawa, West, Jacque and Melandri. West and Jacque started swapping positions on a frequent basis.

11 laps to go with Waldmann still running a race of his own out the front, a clear 5.6 seconds clear of Katoh and Ukawa in 2nd and 3rd respectively. West and Jacque were a little further back and still fighting between themselves for 4th. Matsudo and Sabbatani hit the gravel at this stage of the race.

8 laps to go and Ralf now had 6 seconds over Katoh & Ukawa with Jacque and West a further 7 seconds in arrears and still fighting hard for that 4th position.

On lap 22 West dropped off the back of Jacque to the tune of 5 seconds for some reason? But still had 7 seconds in hand before he could fall back in to the clutches of Melandri and get relegated to 6th. So if Westy has no machinery problems he should have the 5th position wrapped up.

2 laps to go and Waldmann now had 7 seconds on Katoh in 2nd place. The German looked to be having great fun sliding his Aprilia around and popping little wheelies out of the corners. He really made the race win look way too easy.

Nakano's hard work to get his bike going again after his stack early in the race paid dividends by making it back up through the field to take 1 championship point for his 15th position.

Anthony West held on to his 5th position - "Qualifying wasn't good, so we went back to the bike set-up that worked better in practice on Saturday morning. We also changed the rear a bit because it was sliding. The bike was sliding around in the race near the end and that's why I lost touch with (Olivier) Jacque. Before that we had passed each other a heap of times and it was all pretty clean stuff. I got a great start and just went for it at the first few tight corners. I ran really tight lines to get under as many guys as I could and it worked. That's the first time I've run with some of the fast guys lap after lap so I'm happy about that. When you're racing with them you see how consistent they are and they don't make mistakes. That's what I have to do. I just wish we'd had a better time of it in practice and qualifying. We had problems getting the front-end right, but hopefully we've learnt some things that will help us in the future."

Some riders had stuck their hands up while riding the warm-up lap but settled on the grid ready to start the race if so ordered. And start they did.

Alzamora got a terrible start and Nieto fell before they were halfway around lap 1, a couple of corners later the riders stuck their hands up to signal that they were unhappy with racing in the rain that had started falling on the warm-up lap and was increasing slightly but was more like light drizzle than rain.

So after a long delay for the riders to be able to go out for wet practice, which was pretty much completely dry, they were finally ready to go again around 3/4 of an hour later.

Ui led the way from the re-start followed by Giansanti, Ueda and Locatelli. A couple of corners later Giansanti took Ui for the lead. Pablo Nieto hit the dirt.

Goi was on a charge from the mid-field and set the fastest lap on lap 3.

As they commenced lap 4 the race order was - Ui, Giansanti, Ueda, Locatelli.

Azuma was also starting a charge after setting the fastest lap on lap 5. The leading 6 were pretty close packed and jockeying for position at every opportunity - typically close 125 racing with lots of position changes.

14 laps to go - Alzamora, Giansanti, Ui, Locatelli, Azuma.

With 12 laps to go Alzamora and Giansanti started opening a little gap back to Locatelli and Ui in 3rd and 4th respectively. Ui started to experience some type of problem and had dropped back to 6th a lap later.

10 laps to go and Alzamora still just managing to keep Giansanti behind him and Locatelli was closing on both of them. Scalvini retired with mechanical problems.

Giansanti hit the front with 7 laps to run. Race order - Giansanti, Alzamora, Locatelli, Azuma, Cecchinello, Ueda, Ui, Goi.

With 4 laps to go Giansanti had a huge moment and Alzamora shot through to take the lead which was very popular with the Spanish crowd.

Giansanti was staying right on the tail of race leader Alzamora and they had opened up a gap to Locatelli in 3rd. The Spanish crowd started going mad for the Spanish race leader with a lap to go.

Giansanti failed to make a pass stick and the crowd went mad as Alzamora took the win.