Grand Prix 2000 - Round 16 - Phillip Island - Saturday Qualifying
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Tetsuya Harada came down in morning practice and has gone to hospital for treatment to a possible ruptured spleen and will not be racing tomorrow. Another victim of morning practice was Jamie Robinson who had a terrifying crash that left him unconscious for some minutes but apparently he has got out of it with only a broken wrist which will keep him out of the race but he can count himself a fortunate individual to get away with only that after hitting the deck so very hard. Anthony West did some damage to himself in qualifying yesterday but was back on the bike today to try and work his way up the grid. In 500 qualifying McCoy was entering the main straight with the YZR 500 crossed right up in awesome slides, the little man from Camden makes doing that stuff on a 500 look so easy a child could do it. Garry is going to be fantastic to watch during the race tomorrow, his bike/throttle control is simply amazing. Everyone was quicker today right from the start of the session due to better conditions. Barros still the quickest man for most of the session though. Right from the off the fast guys were into the 33's. Roberts was pushing the Suzuki hard and did not look completely happy with his set-up as he was obviously working very hard on the bike. He is still fast, 7th - 1m34s, but it looks as though he is saving tucks and twitches all over the place. 20 minutes into the session and the quickest riders in order were - Barros, Biaggi, McWilliams, Checa, McCoy, Capirossi, Rossi, Criville. A few minutes later Criville started to string some laps together and one of them slotted him up to 2nd fastest. Halfway into the session McWilliams punted the Aprilia around the track in 1m33.252s which put him on the top of the time sheets. The 500 Aprilia is rumoured to be retiring from competition after this GP which would be a shame as McWilliams has really had the little twin on the pace at some circuits this year. McWilliams is obviously very good so if the Aprilia 500 does get the chop I would think he might be towards the top of the shopping list in some team manager's minds but available rides are filling very quickly. 17 minutes remaining in this session and the order from quickest is - McWilliams, Barros, Criville, Roberts, Biaggi, Checa, Okada, Rossi. McWilliams improved his time to 1m32.636s and has been the only man to dip into the 32s thus far. The next lap he lowered the mark again to a 1m32.5. Kenny Roberts is circulating again and they must have made some changes to the RGV 500 as he looks to be having a much easier time of it than he was at the beginning of the session. 10 minutes to go - McWilliams, Barros, Capirossi, Criville, Checa, Abe, Roberts, Biaggi. A few minutes later Roberts shot into 3rd and looking for a clean lap to improve his time in the dying minutes of this final qualifying session. Rossi is back on his normal bike today after playing around on the new 2001 development mule that HRC have brought along to Phillip Island. He is struggling a little back in 12th, hold that Rossi now up into 6th. Biaggi into the grass but is okay and heads straight back to the pits for his spare bike and goes straight back out. Laconi into the 32s! Laconi did a 32.9 with less than 2 minutes remaining in the session. His team-mate McCoy is down in 12th but trying hard on the last lap allowed and records a 33.312 while Barros dips into the 32s also and makes his way past Laconi and up into 2nd. Unfortunately the BSL team once again failed to qualify but they were not alone with Cardoso also failing to qualify. 250 qualifying saw Ukawa crash quite heavily at the end of the session. Coates crashed late in the session and local wildcard Shaun Geronomi had a few bike problems and was forced to push his bike back to the pits. |
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