Fabrizio leaving factory bikes in his wake

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Michel Fabrizio shook the racing world with a tenth place in only his
second ride in MotoGP. To measure the scale of his achievement just look
at the Grand Prix winners and World Champions who finished behind him.
Our young Roman passed both Abe and Capirossi on their factory Yamaha
and Ducati respectively as well as the Kawasaki of Hofmann and Aprilia
of rain specialist McWilliams.

It was a dramatic turn around for the WCM team as both Fabrizio and
Chris Burns had failed to qualify in the single dry session on Friday.
Burns unfortunately broke his left thumb at the end of the final session
but Fabrizio was allowed to ride in consideration of his good time in
the final damp qualifying session and the fact that he was tenth in the
Saturday morning wet session.

Fabrizio had to start from last place on the grid of course but had
already passed Kurtis Roberts on the Proton KR by the time he arrived at
the first corner. By the end of the first lap he had also got the better
of Tamada, Hopkins, Hofmann, Abe and McWilliams.

McWilliams got past on the start and finish straight and Fabrizio then
dealt with Capirossi as he chased after McWilliams. Chasing the Irishman
took him away from the opposition until he passed the Aprilia
convincingly on lap eight. Fabrizio then chased down Nakano on the
second of the Kawasakis.

Just as he seemed certain to continue his forward charge the
inconsistency of the slipper clutch caught him out. "It just locked the
rear wheel going into the corner and down I went," I pulled in the
clutch to keep the engine running and didn’t slide far. The marshals
helped me up and I got back on the track as soon as I could."

He lost 25 seconds on that lap and dropped from 12th to 16th. It took
only a lap though to get his rhythm back and he was soon gaining on
Hofmann again. It looked visually an impossible task but when you looked
at the lap times and saw that Fabrizio was gain over two seconds per lap
it clearly wasn’t impossible at all.

It soon became inevitable in fact and on lap twenty he jumped past both
Hofmann and Aoki on the Proton KR. Lap 23 saw him deal the same blow to
Capirossi and Abe to gain tenth where he finished.

"Apart from the trouble with the clutch, the bike worked great," said
Fabrizio. "I was getting good traction from the Dunlops and that was a
big help. I just had a good rhythm and I had a huge smile on my face
when I passed the factory Ducati."

WCM has a new clutch under development and it is hoped that we can test
it at least in Le Mans. "We know that the weather conditions allowed us
to do something unusual here and all credit to Michel for taking
advantage," Commented Director of Racing Peter Clifford. "Also the
greatest credit to Francois Charlot, Mats Melander, Jez Wilson and
Sophie Bodson who have kept this project going through an uncertain
winter and have now assembled a great team for the season."

Chris Burns is expected to have recovered sufficiently for a return to
Racing at Le Mans in two weeks. Neither Burns or the rest of the WCM
team will be upset to see a repeat of the wet weather that accompanied
last year’s French GP.