2000 South African motorcycle Grand Prix explained

The 2000 South African motorcycle Grand Prix was the first round of the 2000 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. It took place on 19 March 2000 at Phakisa Freeway.

500cc race report

This race was most notable for the shock win of WCM rider Garry McCoy. Initially, many thought that it would be 1999 500cc world champion Àlex Crivillé who would win the race, mainly thanks to the pole he had obtained on Saturday. This race also marked the first ever 500cc race of Valentino Rossi.

At the start of the race, Kenny Roberts Jr. on his Suzuki, overtook Gibernau at the start to lead the opening lap, followed by the Yamaha of Carlos Checa. Crivillé would drop down to 7th, whilst Tadayuki Okada moved up to third, closely followed by Loris Capirossi who would swap places with each other a few times on the opening lap. McCoy at that time was only in 8th place, and Rossi in 13th after a bad opening lap.

After a few laps, Checa would overtake Kenny Roberts Jr. for the lead, and not long after that Capirossi would follow suit. McCoy dropped to 9th place, with Valentino Rossi behind him.^[2]

On the 5th lap, Capirossi overtook Checa to lead the race, and after 12 laps, both Max Biaggi and Valentino Rossi were out of the race; Biaggi because of technical problems, and Rossi because of a crash.^[3]

With the laps closing down, McCoy overtook multiple people to reach third place. Sete Gibernau also overtook Kenny Roberts to go on and finish in what would be 4th place, but ran wide and eventually retired. Not much later, Crivillé would end up overtaking Roberts Jr. as well.

With 5 laps to go, McCoy overtook the Honda of Capirossi and went up into second place. A few corners later, he overtook the other Yamaha of Checa to lead the race. He held off a late charge from Checa and would come home to win the race with 0.366 seconds difference: the first 500cc race of his career.^{[4] [5]}

This was the first race to be won by an Australian since the 1998 Argentine motorcycle Grand Prix who was won by Mick Doohan.

500 cc classification

Pos.	No.	Rider	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	24	Garry McCoy	Red Bull Yamaha WCM	Yamaha	28	45:38.775	9	25
2	7	Carlos Checa	Marlboro Yamaha Team	Yamaha	28	+0.366	4	20
3	65	Loris Capirossi	Emerson Honda Pons	Honda	28	+1.590	2	16
4	10	Alex Barros	Emerson Honda Pons	Honda	28	+9.745	13	13
5	1	Àlex Crivillé	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	28	+10.253	7	11
6	2	Kenny Roberts Jr.	Telefónica Movistar Suzuki	Suzuki	28	+15.853	3	10
7	6	Norick Abe	Antena 3 Yamaha d'Antin	Yamaha	28	+24.228	15	9
8	9	Nobuatsu Aoki	Telefónica Movistar Suzuki	Suzuki	28	+26.719	12	8
9	55	Régis Laconi	Red Bull Yamaha WCM	Yamaha	28	+36.231	16	7
10	17	Jurgen van den Goorbergh	Rizla Honda	TSR-Honda	28	+37.613	11	6
11	25	José Luis Cardoso	Maxon Dee Cee Jeans	Honda	28	+1:04.044	20	5
12	22	Sébastien Gimbert	Tecmas Honda Elf	Honda	28	+1:14.912	17	4
13	15	Yoshiteru Konishi	F.C.C. TSR	TSR-Honda	28	+1:30.049	21	3
14	12	Shane Norval	Sabre Sport	Honda	28	+1:32.776	19	2
15	11	José David de Gea	Proton Team KR	Modenas KR3	27	+1 lap	18	1
Ret	8	Tadayuki Okada	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	21	Accident	6
Ret	5	Sete Gibernau	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	20	Retirement	1
Ret	46	Valentino Rossi	Nastro Azzurro Honda	Honda	12	Accident	5
Ret	4	Max Biaggi	Marlboro Yamaha Team	Yamaha	12	Retirement	10
Ret	99	Jeremy McWilliams	Aprilia Grand Prix Racing	Aprilia	7	Retirement	8
Ret	31	Tetsuya Harada	Aprilia Grand Prix Racing	Aprilia	2	Retirement	14
Sources: [6] [7] [8]

250 cc classification

Pos.	No.	Rider	Manufacturer	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	56	Shinya Nakano	Yamaha	26	42:34.085	1	25
2	74	Daijiro Kato	Honda	26	+0.875	3	20
3	4	Tohru Ukawa	Honda	26	+13.813	2	16
4	19	Olivier Jacque	Yamaha	26	+30.687	5	13
5	14	Anthony West	Honda	26	+47.621	4	11
6	21	Franco Battaini	Aprilia	26	+47.705	6	10
7	6	Ralf Waldmann	Aprilia	26	+58.221	7	9
8	9	Sebastián Porto	Yamaha	26	+1:02.190	11	8
9	24	Jason Vincent	Aprilia	26	+1:07.732	17	7
10	8	Naoki Matsudo	Yamaha	26	+1:09.269	18	6
11	77	Jamie Robinson	Aprilia	26	+1:23.219	14	5
12	30	Alex Debón	Aprilia	26	+1:25.538	10	4
13	13	Marco Melandri	Aprilia	26	+1:29.763	8	3
14	26	Klaus Nöhles	Aprilia	26	+1:31.878	13	2
15	44	Roberto Rolfo	TSR-Honda	25	+1 lap	28	1
16	42	David Checa	TSR-Honda	25	+1 lap	24
17	41	Jarno Janssen	TSR-Honda	25	+1 lap	19
18	12	Mike Baldinger	Yamaha	25	+1 lap	26
Ret	10	Fonsi Nieto	Yamaha	21	Retirement	23
Ret	31	Lucas Oliver	Yamaha	20	Retirement	27
Ret	18	Shahrol Yuzy	Yamaha	19	Retirement	12
Ret	16	Johan Stigefelt	TSR-Honda	17	Retirement	20
Ret	11	Ivan Clementi	Aprilia	14	Retirement	22
Ret	54	David García	Aprilia	12	Accident	21
Ret	37	Luca Boscoscuro	Aprilia	10	Retirement	9
Ret	66	Alex Hofmann	Aprilia	8	Retirement	15
Ret	15	Adrian Coates	Aprilia	3	Accident	16
DNS	25	Vincent Philippe	TSR-Honda	0	Did not start	25
Source: [9]

125 cc classification

Pos.	No.	Rider	Manufacturer	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	21	Arnaud Vincent	Aprilia	24	41:35.310	6	25
2	32	Mirko Giansanti	Honda	24	+1.937	4	20
3	1	Emilio Alzamora	Honda	24	+2.057	11	16
4	4	Roberto Locatelli	Aprilia	24	+2.362	1	13
5	5	Noboru Ueda	Honda	24	+4.566	7	11
6	17	Steve Jenkner	Honda	24	+11.073	5	10
7	8	Gianluigi Scalvini	Aprilia	24	+11.187	3	9
8	26	Ivan Goi	Honda	24	+11.504	8	8
9	3	Masao Azuma	Honda	24	+37.723	12	7
10	23	Gino Borsoi	Aprilia	24	+39.819	9	6
11	9	Lucio Cecchinello	Honda	24	+39.887	18	5
12	16	Simone Sanna	Aprilia	24	+39.964	10	4
13	29	Ángel Nieto Jr.	Honda	24	+40.474	14	3
14	12	Randy de Puniet	Aprilia	24	+41.118	13	2
15	22	Pablo Nieto	Derbi	24	+52.411	16	1
16	15	Alex de Angelis	Honda	24	+52.639	15
17	35	Reinhard Stolz	Honda	24	+1:22.243	20
18	10	Adrián Araujo	Honda	24	+1:27.527	24
19	53	William de Angelis	Aprilia	24	+1:27.811	21
20	11	Max Sabbatani	Honda	24	+1:28.093	17
21	51	Marco Petrini	Aprilia	24	+1:28.449	19
22	24	Leon Haslam	Italjet	24	+1:28.648	22
23	18	Antonio Elías	Honda	24	+1:47.350	23
Ret	39	Jaroslav Huleš	Italjet	4	Retirement	25
Ret	41	Youichi Ui	Derbi	0	Accident	2
DNS	54	Manuel Poggiali	Derbi		Did not start
Source: [10]

Championship standings after the race (500cc)

Below are the standings for the top five riders and constructors after round one has concluded.^[11]

Riders' Championship standings

	Rider	Points
1	Garry McCoy	25
2	Carlos Checa	20
3	Loris Capirossi	16
4	Alex Barros	13
5	Àlex Crivillé	11

Constructors' Championship standings

	Constructor	Points
1	Yamaha	25
2	Honda	16
3	Suzuki	10
4	TSR-Honda	6
5	Modenas KR3	1

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Notes and References

1. Web site: 2000 South African MotoGP. 13 June 2017. Motorsportmagazine.com. 16 May 2018.
2. Web site: Australian Garry McCoy Wins Opening Round of 500 GP in South Africa; Shinya Nakano Takes 250 GP « MotorcycleDaily.com – Motorcycle News, Editorials, Product Reviews and Bike Reviews. Motorcycledaily.com. 1 January 2019.
3. Web site: Rossi: I thought 'why are they so slow?'… and crashed!. 29 March 2018. Crash.net. 1 January 2019.
4. Web site: McCoy holds on to scoop SA Grand Prix - Cape Argus. Independent Online. South Africa. 1 January 2019.
5. Web site: Yamaha s bullish season opener - Yamaha Racing . 1 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190102094511/https://www.yamaha-racing.com/motogp/articles/reports/race/117762/yamaha-s-bullish-season-opener . 2 January 2019 . dead .
6. Web site: 2000 South African MotoGP - Motor Sport Magazine Database. 13 June 2017. Motorsportmagazine.com. 20 July 2018.
7. Web site: Gauloises Africa's Grand Prix – 500cc – Race Classification. MotoGP.com. Dorna Sports. 19 March 2000. 20 July 2018.
8. Web site: 500cc Race Classification 2000. Motogp.com. 20 July 2018.
9. Web site: Gauloises Africa's Grand Prix – 250cc – Race Classification. MotoGP.com. Dorna Sports. 19 March 2000. 20 July 2018.
10. Web site: Gauloises Africa's Grand Prix – 125cc – Race Classification. MotoGP.com. Dorna Sports. 19 March 2000. 20 July 2018.
11. Web site: Standings . 2000 . resources.motogp.com. 2019-08-20.