The South African circuit of Welkom will be the venue of the Grand Prix of South Africa, second round of the 2002 Motorcycling World Championship. This track, one of the latest inclusions in the Championship, has very special characteristics that make it a very demanding circuit with regard to tyres and the riders’ physical condition. The heat and the choice of tyres will be two determining factors for the development of the race. In the 125cc Alberto Puig’s pupils will arrive in Welkom ready to repeat their performance of Japan, where both managed to get their first points on Sunday. After taking the pole on Saturday afternoon, Dani Pedrosa, saw himself riding under persistent rain on Sunday morning, what made him ride extremely careful ending up as eighth fastest. His teammate Joan Olivé, who improved during the weekend, was also able to get his first points with the thirteenth final position. Fonsi Nieto is hoping for a dry 250cc race to be able to reaffirm with regard to his rivals, that he is one of the candidates for this years’ title. After his performance in Japan which was only troubled by the rain on Sunday and a crash with only two laps to go, that pushed him back to thirteenth position, Fonsi now arrives to one of his favourite circuits, where he already took a meritorious fifth position last year. For his teammate Toni Elías, Welkom will be a new venue to discover on his Aprilia. He ended up eighteenth last year in the 125cc. He was fighting for the leading positions, but he had problems with his tyres that set him far back. Elías will try to get points in Welkom as well and finish another race on his new bike. And last but not least, the new MotoGP category will be witnessing another interesting duel between both four-stroke Hondas of the Repsol Honda MotoGP team with Valentino Rossi and Tohru Ukawa, and the remaining riders on two and four-stroke bikes. After Rossi’s victory in Japan and the equality during the dry practices on Friday and Saturday, all teams are hoping for a dry race in South Africa, to be able to see where each one of them is compared to their rivals.
