2001 Grand Prix 500 - Round 9 - Sachsenring

2001 Grand Prix 500 - Round 9 - Sachsenring - Final Qualifying / Grid

Max Biaggi remained on top form at the Sachsenring circuit today, maintaining his provisional placing from yesterday to record his third pole position of the season for the Cinzano Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland. There's a sense of déjà vu about the grid for tomorrow's race, with Biaggi's title rival Valentino Rossi a full ten places behind him on the grid in eleventh place, just as he had been at Donington a fortnight ago. Rossi went on to win that race although whether he can repeat such a titanic feat remains to be seen, particularly considering that today's final session was held on a dry track as opposed to the wet conditions which affected his qualifying time in Great Britain.

"We tried a few things out this morning in an attempt to improve on our effort from yesterday, but the times were not as good as we hoped," said Biaggi. "This afternoon we reverted to the settings we had found yesterday and with some soft tyres on I was able to set the pole lap."

Biaggi's team-mate Checa turned in a series of fast times to put his machine on the front row in fourth place behind Nakano, also on a Yamaha, in second and Barros, the only Honda rider to break into the front row, in third. Jacque and McCoy confirmed that they are back to full fitness with fifth and sixth spot respectively, and they are joined on the second row by Yamaha colleague Abe, who rounded off a satisfactory day for the firm by sealing eighth spot behind another solitary Honda representative in Capirossi.

There was further bad luck for Honda with the news that former World Champion Alex Criville was thrown from both of his NSR 500 machines during the course of the afternoon session and now faces a race against time to be fit for the race, whilst his team will be working against the clock just to have a motorcycle ready for him in time for tomorrow's warm-up. Barros, Vincent and Stigefelt all crashed this afternoon, whilst Capirossi and Rossi escaped across the gravel.

World Championship leader Valentino Rossi (Nastro Azzurro Honda NSR500) could only manage 11th fastest in this afternoon's frantic final qualifying session at the Sachsenring, consigning him to a third-row start for the second successive race.

Two weeks ago at Donington Park the Italian qualified 11th following a big tumble during the first day of practice. However, that third-row start didn't stop him from winning his fifth race of the year! Rossi has had no get-offs here but he has struggled to get a good qualifying pace out of his NSR500 at the ultra-tight German circuit. Concerned but not worried, he's now readying himself for another fight through the pack.

"I don't think my grid position accurately reflects the overall situation," said Rossi, who currently leads the series by 26 points. "I've checked the rhythm of the other guys on the time sheets and they're not so much faster, just one or two tenths. And I didn't use my soft tyres like they did. So the situation isn't drastic, though it's not that great either!

"We've been working on our settings, trying to improve the bike, but at the moment it's not changing direction so well, and I can't go into corners as fast as I'd like. The warm-up will be important for us."

After winning the British GP from 11th on the grid, and taking second place here last year, after running 16th at the end of the first lap, there's a feeling within the Sachsenring paddock that nothing can stop Rossi. The man himself isn't so sure. "I can't say that I can always recover like I did at Donington and as I did here last year," he added. "But I will do my best."

Australia's Garry McCoy was 6th quickest in his return to racing after the unfortunate wrist injury that has plagued him the last couple of rounds. "Overall I'm pretty happy with how everything has gone so far this weekend. I think we have come back strongly and are getting close to where we should be. During the last session I was hoping that we could get on the front row, but perhaps that was asking for too much too soon. My arm started to feel weak again toward the end of the session, but was stronger than yesterday. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to just forget about it, but realistically I have to accept that it may cause me problems towards the end of the race." remarked McCoy.

Proton Team KR rider Jurgen van den Goorbergh will start tomorrow's German GP from a disappointing 13th position on the fourth row of the grid, after circumstances threw up a dilemma for the Dutch rider of the lightweight three-cylinder Proton KR3.

Team and rider had expected better at the Sachsenring, a short and twisty track that should suit the nimble KR3. Instead, a minor engine glitch on his preferred bike forced him onto the spare machine with a different engine configuration - and as a result he ended the session undecided as to which machine to choose for tomorrow's race, the ninth of 16 World Championship rounds.

The team had designed and built a new close-firing-order "Big Bang" engine, used for the first time yesterday - and the gentler throttle response means the rider can open the throttle harder on the tight turns. Yesterday, Van den Goorbergh had decided to concentrate on that machine.

Then, in today's final session, a minor fuel problem sidelined that machine briefly and forced Jurgen to switch to the conventional bike. To his surprise, it was performing better - and he spent the rest of the session comparing the two machines. Tonight, he will decide which option to choose for the race.

Jurgen - "I was going to ride the Big Bang all day, but on the first lap of practice it stopped, and I had to switch to the conventional engine. It was actually quite a surprise, because it was running really well. We're not quite there yet with the Big Bang, because it is still brand new. I went back and forth between the two for the rest of the afternoon, and they are different in how you can open the throttle in the corners, so it would take a couple of laps to readjust each time. As a result, I never got a good rhythm, and I didn't get the best possible lap time either. Also, the Big Bang felt really flat and down on power. Afterwards we discovered that the gearing had been different from what we thought, which affected the performance. Now I have to decide which bike to race. I'm not happy with the way things are going this weekend - we're testing, not racing, and I still have no final idea on tyres, suspension settings and so on. This should have been a good track for us. Anyway, the race is tomorrow, and things can still change".

Australia's Ant West today recorded his best qualifying result of this year's 500cc motorcycle world championship after narrowly avoiding a crash at the Sachsenring in prepartion for tomorrow's German Grand Prix.

The 20-year-old will start on the fourth row of the grid on his Dee Cee Racing Honda V-Twin after emerging 16th fastest in today's second and final qualifying session. He clocked a best lap time of 1-min 28.230-secs around the tight 3.7km track.

West set his quickest qualifying time on his 19th of 26 laps in the session. He escaped unscathed after being thrown off the seat of his two cylinder machine at 230-km/h in a right-hand corner that plunges steeply downhill onto the back straight in the revised section of the track.

Fortunately the 500cc rookie was able to regain control of his machine and remain upright.

West, who has scored world championship points in four of his six 500cc race starts this year, was the fastest qualifier of the riders on V-Twin machines at the Sachsenring. He also qualified ahead of two riders aboard more powerful works four-cylinder motorcycles – Japan's Noriyuki Haga on a Red Bull Yamaha, and Briton Leon Haslam on a Shell Advance Honda.

West has raced at the Sachsenring twice before, with a best result of sixth in the 250cc grand prix on a production-based Honda TSR machine in 1999. In the 250cc race in 2000 he finished 10th after losing time on the opening lap when he was forced off the circuit.

Westy - "The whole new section here is pretty exciting, and the corner where I almost crashed is completely 'blind'. You just have to flick it in, hang on, and hope you come out the other side. Normally you have to wait a couple of laps to get some heat in the tyre before you go in hard. I was trying a new tyre with not many laps on it, and when I pitched it in the back came right around. I was out of the seat and I was wondering where I'd end up. Luckily I landed back on the bike. On the downhills here you're really pushing the front, and when you close the throttle you don't slow down much. The series of left-handers is difficult too – to know where to get on the power. On Friday the bike wasn't really steering the way I wanted. Just sitting on it felt uncomfortable. We fixed that overnight by playing with fork oil levels, and lowering the front a bit. Now I'm looking for better rear traction. It's a compromise, but the downhill sections are faster so you tend to get the bike better for those parts. Today I needed a good tyre to qualify on, and another for the race. The weather was bad this morning so we had to do things in the afternoon session which kept us pretty busy. It all went pretty well and I went almost a second quicker than yesterday."

In an unfortunate development Mark Willis has split with the Pulse GP Team, click here for more

Harada took pole position and Melandri second in a late charge by the Aprilia pair which dropped Honda rider Katoh two places to third just minutes ahead of the chequered flag in this afternoon's final qualifying session for the 250 class. It's the fourth pole of the season for Harada and his performance was perhaps only overshadowed by McWilliams, who sealed the final front row position despite breaking his collarbone just a fortnight ago at Donington and riding with a metal plate inserted in his shoulder. McWilliams only just held on to fourth position after a late effort from Fonsi Nieto, who made it four out of the top five positions on the grid for Aprilia.

Sabbatani took his first ever career pole position in 125cc, and will be hoping to follow up his performance with a first ever win tomorrow. The pint-sized pilot held off the substantial challenge of fellow Italians Sanna and Cecchinello, who took second and third positions on the grid respectively, all on Aprilia machinery. Gilera rider Poggiali completes the front row.