German GP. Races

New victory for Valentino Rossi and third place for a recovered Tohru Ukawa
Fonsi Nieto fourth with engine problems and Elias sixth in the 250cc; Pedrosa seventh and Olivé eleventh in the 125cc.
 MotoGP race, three laps to go and the front group was being lead by Olivier Jacque and his two-stroke Yamaha, followed by Alex Barros, Rossi, Biaggi and Tohru Ukawa. But the big surprise came on the corner at the end of the straight: Barros, trying to pass Jacque, lost grip in the front and crashed, sweeping along the French Yamaha rider. Until that moment, the race had been a grouped race with a strange combination of two and four stroke bikes. After the crash, Rossi found himself with a clean track in front of him and kept himself on the lead until the end of the race. Biaggi, second, couldn’t prepare an attack on his fellow countryman, just as Tohru Ukawa, who has been very brave during the whole weekend finishing third at the Grand Prix. In the 250cc, luck hasn’t been on Fonsi Nieto’s side, who has been fighting hard until the last few moments to improve his fourth place, unfortunately without managing to do so. After a bad start, Fonsi lost too much time trying to overtake Matsudo, De Puniet and Locatelli, whilst seeing how the leading group, made up by Rolfo, Melandri and Porto, was going away. With six laps to go, the rain showed up and the Clerk of the Course was forced to show the red flag thus declaring the race finished. Behind Fonsi, who finished fourth, his team-mate Elias took the chequered flag in sixth position, after a hard race due to the injury in his left hand, suffered after the heavy crash on Saturday morning. In the 125cc, as it’s becoming usual, the race was a very contended one. Frenchman Vincent imposed a very fast race as of the start and only the young De Angelis was able to follow him. Behind them, the local rider Jenkner, Dani Pedrosa, Pablo Nieto and Manuel Poggiali, who had a great recovery, were fighting for the third place on the podium until the last lap. Finally the last place of honour was for the local rider Jenkner with a difference of only a thousand of a second over Poggiali. Pablo Nieto finished fifth and Pedrosa, with a lot of mechanical problems, was set back to the seventh final position. His team-mate Joan Olivé, who also had to ride in a very contended group with Ui, Kallio, Borsoi  and Giansanti, took the chequered flag in eleventh place. The Motorcycling World Championship will take a one month summer break, in order to get back to action on the weekend of 23 to 25 August at the Czech Grand Prix.