Crashes and chaos hinder Yamaha runners.

Antena 3 Yamaha d'Antin team leader Norick Abe put in a strong performance to finish the Rio Grand Prix in sixth position as best of the Yamahas behind second-placed Max Biaggi, but there was the usual mix of highs and lows for the rest of the Japanese marque's riders.

Abe finished sixth after a race long battle with Loris Capirossi, who finished fifth on his two-stroke Honda, and Olivier Jacque, riding a similar Yamaha for the Gauloises Tech 3 team. Team-mate Jose Luis Cardoso - standing in for the injured Pere Riba - also brought his bike home, albeit in eleventh place.

"At the last wet race, in Portugal, I was lacking a lot of grip, but this time it was a different story - both tyres were offering very good grip and feedback," Abe said of his good performance, "My speed and position was quite good in these conditions but, compared to the four-strokes, the wet really penalises the 500s much more. I did pass Jacque, and had a good dice with Capirossi, but I just wasn't able to match his speed without the risk of crashing. I just hope the next race is dry."

"It wasn't a great start because I was not able to avoid the first turn incident where Kato crashed," added Cardoso, who found himself caught up in a four-bike first turn melee, "Eventually, I ended up on the grass and was a long way behind. Fortunately, the team had worked really hard this morning to give me a good bike and I was able to make up a few places to finally finish eleventh. I'd like to thank them for their efforts and I hope I get the opportunity to work with them again sometime soon."

Frenchman Jacque eventually finishing seventh, but this was much better than Tech 3 team-mate Shinya Nakano, who was one of six riders to crash out of the 24-lap race, including Honda prot?g? Daijiro Kato, who came off the worst after the first turn, four-bike pile-up.

"We had a technical problem this morning during the warm-up, which meant that we didn't get a chance to set the bike up as well for the wet as we would have liked," Jacque revealed, "Given that, and the atrocious conditions, we didn't do too badly. I had a good battle with Barros and Abe, but nearly fell off twice trying to stay with them. In the end, I had to settle for seventh."

Nakano's contribution to the start began as the lights went out, as he almost collected fellow Yamaha runner Carlos Checa, whose Marlboro bike was briefly stranded in neutral on the line. From there, however, the Japanese rider's day got worse, culminating in a big crash.

"I nearly hit Carlos off the line, which cost me a few places, but then I got past a few riders on the first lap to come up behind Garry McCoy and Loris [Capirossi]," he revealed, "I went off the line to try and get past Garry and ended up highsiding. I'm very disappointed because I was feeling good on the bike and I felt that I could have gone well."