Italian Grand Prix Notes
Sept 06, 1999

World champ Mick Doohan went under the knife yet again in California last Friday, in the latest bid to accelerate his return to 500 GP racing. The Aussie has been off bikes ever since his huge crash during qualifying for May's Spanish GP. Last week's op removed the plate and pins from his left wrist, in the hope of improving the strength in his left arm. But there seems to have been little progress with the nerve damage to his upper arm and Doohan is no closer to announcing a comeback date. "There doesn't seem to have been much improvement with the arm over the last couple of weeks, the situation is pretty static," he said. "It'll be something like three weeks before the doctors know whether the operation has made any real difference to the strength I've got in my left hand. "I'm spending most of the time over here going from one doctor to another, doing tests and more tests. Obviously all this stuff does get me down but I've just got to get on with it, I've got to get my head down, keep pushing the injuries and keep working at them, so I can hop back on the bike again. Right now I have no idea when that will be. I've already said I won't ride again until I'm strong enough to ride to win and that's still the way I feel. I don't want to ride around for the sake of it - there's enough people out there doing that already."

Last week Doohan was contacted by HRC president Yasuo Ikenoya, who is keen to begin negotiations for 2000, even though no one knows whether the five-times world champ will or won't race next season. "Mick has already told us that he would like to run his own team for next season," said Ikenoya. "Obviously we want to start talking with him now, even though his injuries mean we don't know his real situation." Doohan may pay a visit to next weekend's Valencia GP in Spain before heading to Australia.

Sadly it's starting to look certain he will attend Phillip Island only as an interested spectator.
 

Bad-boy 250 world champ Loris Capirossi is making headlines again. Sacked by Aprilia for winning the 1998 250 crown in controversial circumstances (he knocked off team-mate and title rival Tetsuya Harada at the final corner of last year's final race), Capirossi is now suing the Italian factory for £3.2 million (a tick over five million dollars, US) for breach of contract. And if being stung by his former employers wasn't enough, Capirossi collapsed at Imola on Saturday after being stung by a wasp during practice. The Italian suffered an allergic reaction to the sting and was rushed to the Clinica Mobile where race doctors averted a potentially lethal situation.
 

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Just when things couldn't get any worse for King Kenny Roberts, they did. While his team struggles through its worst ever season in 14 years of GP racing, the King crashed a dirt bike back home in Montana, USA, sustaining six broken ribs and a broken wrist and hand. Roberts is now resting up at home, just like Modenas rider Jamie Whitham who broke his pelvis in a fiery crash at last month's Czech GP. The former British Superbike champion has had the injury pinned and plated and will be out of action for eight weeks, though he is apparently considering retirement.
 

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German factory MuZ is chasing Aussie hero Anthony Gobert to ride its 500 V4 at next month's Australian Grand Prix. MuZ recently sacked its number-one rider Luca Cadalora for lack of commitment and badly needs a fast man on the bike to score some good end-of-season results. The bike has already proved its speed with two pole positions this year in the hands of Dutchman Jurgen van den Goorbergh, but race results have not been so impressive. Goey - who raced 500s for Suzuki in '97 before getting the sack for smoking dope - is currently contesting the US Superbike series on a Vance & Hines Ducati.

Next year he will return to World Superbikes for the first time since '96, riding a factory Ducati alongside reigning Supers champ Carl Fogarty. His ultimate goal is still a 500 world title but it's not yet known whether he will agree to this one-off return to bike racing's toughest class.
 

Spanish flier Carlos Checa suffered his 24th crash of the season at Imola on Friday, tumbling from his Marlboro Yamaha in the first qualifying session. Checa's number of falls is unprecedented in modern 500 racing but perhaps most remarkable has been his lack of injuries. Apart from cuts and brazes, the cracked finger he sustained at Imola was his first 'real' injury of the year. That surely says a lot for the protective qualities of modern-day helmets, leathers, gloves and boots, most of which now employ high-tech body armor materials including carbon fiber and kevlar.

Suzuki is chasing Honda man Sete Gibernau for 2000. The Japanese factory wants to run a three-man team next year, in a bid to improve its development potential. With only two riders against Honda's seven NSRs and Yamaha's five YZRs, Suzuki suffers through lack of rider feedback. Gibernau would also bring something else to the team - money, and lots of it. Like most riders hailing from bike-mad Spain, the former 250 man has huge sponsorship-earning potential and Spanish phone company Telefonica are keen to back him next year.

Gibernau has massively upped his market value since May, when he took over the NSR500 V4s of injured world champ Mick Doohan. So far he's scored two podium finishes on the bikes, which are much more competitive than the NSRV500 v-twin he campaigned before Doohan's massive Jerez crash. Since then Honda has put the twin on the back burner and announced at Imola that it will not race a factory version of the machine in 2000. (dean wryly notes: anybody who truly believes that miguel duhamel has chunks of guys like sete gibernau in his stool every day, please raise your right hand)

Honda has been testing new parts that will go together to build a substantially revised NSR500 for the 2000 season. Tadayuki Okada tested new cylinders and a new swing-arm in tests before the Imola GP but tests on a full 2000 prototype aren't expected to get underway until after the end of the season.

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