Max power stops Honda in Brno

Max Biaggi became the first man this season to break the Honda hegemony with his debut win of the MotoGP era at the Czech GP in Brno, today.

He lead from pole, taking with him Valentino Rossi and Daijiro Kato, the Japanese rider proving himself equal to the demands of the Honda RCV V5 in his first race on the five-cylinder machine.

This trio broke away, and opened up a huge gap back to Carlos Checa, Tohru Ukawa and Loris Capirossi.

As the race wore on Kato was dropped by the two Italians, and it looked as if Rossi was sizing Biaggi up for a pass, when, with just seven laps to go, Rossi’s rear Michelin suddenly delaminated, removing an 18-inch chunk of rubber and effectively ended his race.

Rossi pitted for a new tyre but retired soon after, leaving Biaggi to claim his and his Yamaha M1’s first victory in the top class. Kato took second, while race of the day should go to Tohru Ukawa in third. The Repsol Honda rider badly knocked about after a false neutral forced a huge highside in practice.

MotoGP:

1)M Biaggi 2)D Kato 3)T Ukawa 4)S Gibernau 5)C Checa 6)L Capirossi 7)J McWilliams 8)N Abe 9)A Barros 10)O Jacque 11)K Roberts 12)J van de Goorbergh 13)G McCoy 14)A Ryo 15)T Harada 16)R Laconi 17)S Guintoli

250:

1)M Melandri 2)S Porto 3)T Elias 4)F Nieto 5)C Stoner 6)R de Puniet 7)R Locatelli 8)N Matsudo 9)H Aoki 10)D Garcia 11)R Waldmann 12)J Vincent 13)A Debon 14)D Heidolf 15)R Jara 16)E Nigon 17)L Haslam 18)D Checa 19)H Lagemaat 20)G Rizmayer

125:

1)L Cecchinello 2)D Pedroda 3)A Vincent 4)H Barbera 5)M Poggiali 6)S Jenkner 7)S Sanna 8)A de Angelis 9)G Borsoi 10)M Kallio 11)G Talmasci 12)M Asuma 13) S Bianco 14)M Giansanti 15)M Sabbatani 16)K Nohles 17)Y Ui 18)S Perugini 19)T Luthi 20)J Lorenzo 21)A Dovizisio 22)G Pellino 23)R Harms 24)M Angeloni 25)M Fabrizio 26)I Toth 27)M Simoncelli 28)I Kalab 29)D Giuseppetti 30)M Smrz