It had been four months since the last wet grand prix, but following warm qualifying conditions thunderstorms arrived at Uddevalla on Saturday night, producing a wet Swedish GP.
Unfortunately, the weather conditions also effected the quality of racing – with only one quick line developing. As an example, Kevin Strijbos took the moto one holeshot, then controlled the entire race on his factory Suzuki, keeping his rivals three to five seconds behind him, while second, third, fourth and fifth were the same riders from the first to the last lap: Jorgensen, Pichon, Everts and Pyrhonen.
“The race was perfect from start to finish,” said Strijbos. “I had a few problems with some lapped riders and Brian came close at one point that made me feel quite nervous, but I could hold on for the whole race and I was really happy with the win.”
“Several times I pushed to come back right behind Brian, but every time I took so much sand and earth on my face that at the end I had no more roll-off on my goggles,” added Pichon who had to slow down in the last laps. Everts caught the Frenchman as a result, but then made a small mistake and fell as he was trying to find another line to overtake on.
From a perfect start to the worse possible, Strijbos lost drive out of the gate beginning the second race and tangled with Antti Pyrhonen, hitting the ground and having to remount from dead-last with the race barely seconds old.
That left Tiscali Honda team-mates Jorgensen and Pichon to dispute the holeshot, with the Danish rider getting the nod, then leading the first four laps in what is practically a home event before Pichon found a way past.
Championship leader Everts would also find a way past Jorgensen after a tough battle, but would lose the position when he fell on lap ten… only for Jorgensen to later make a mistake of his own and present the position back to the Yamaha rider. Thus, the overall win went to Pichon, followed by Jorgensen and Everts.
