"My start was terrible. Initially I got away very well and saw the bike in front of me coming closer which is always good. As I was feeding out the clutch I was giving it more gas and I think I might had given it a bit too much throttle and choked it. All of a sudden bikes started flying past me and I got romped on the run down towards the first corner.
"I got boxed in a bit on the first lap because I was in amongst a few nutters, which is always so much harder than getting away in the top 12. At the end of lap 1 I crossed the line in 19th. On the 2nd lap I passed 4 people and got up to 15th. On lap 3 13th and on lap 4 I almost got collected by Poggiali's bike.
"He high-sided not to far in front of me and his bike was sliding across the track towards the racing line making the gap to get past it smaller and smaller as it got closer to the edge of the circuit. I hesitated for a split second whether to go for the big gap off-line or stay on line and go for the ever decreasing gap. I went for the gap which was getting smaller and smaller and I reckon it was no wider than a metre when I got through!
"In the next few laps I was making my way through the field past Matsudo, then Olive and then Faubel was about 2 seconds ahead with Rolfo, Debon and Nieto quite far ahead of him. I passed Faubel on lap 9 and then it took another 5 laps to catch and pass Rolfo on the factory Honda.
"I expected Rolfo to just sit on the back of me but after a few laps I was reading my pit-board and the gap started going up quite nicely. Nieto and his works Aprilia were next in line but when I passed Rolfo, the gap to Nieto was the best part of 4 seconds so I thought there was no way I'd catch him.
"At first the gap between us was getting smaller but only by a couple of tenths a lap. I pushed hard because I thought there was a slim chance of catching him and then he really started to get big in my vision. With 4 laps to go I passed him into the 2nd corner and pushed hard to get a gap so he had no chance to come back past on the straight.
