1990 Yugoslavian motorcycle Grand Prix

The 1990 Yugoslavian motorcycle Grand Prix was the seventh round of the 1990 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. It took place on the weekend of 15th-17th July, 1990 at the Rijeka circuit.

500 cc race report

In qualifying Christian Sarron goes down hard and is heaved roughly off the tarmac by track marshalls, which brings complaints from riders that the race organization is unprofessional.

At the start, Wayne Rainey leads, followed by Mick Doohan and Niall Mackenzie, while behind them two Cagiva riders collide and crash: Ron Haslam and Randy Mamola. Haslam touched the back of a bike, and fell off into Mamola.

Kevin Schwantz is in 9th place after either a very bad start or a mechanical problem. The field is getting strung out, Rainey ahead, then Doohan, Mackenzie, Pierfrancesco Chili, and Jean-Philippe Ruggia, with Schwantz in eighth.

Alex Barros crashes and puts Cagiva’s Yugoslavian GP to bed.

Schwantz finds his rhythm and catches the group of three chasing Rainey: Doohan, Mackenzie and Chili; a small gap to the fight for sixth between Ruggia and Sito Pons.

The gap to Rainey looks too big to close, and the fight for second has narrowed down to Mackenzie and Schwantz. Behind him, Doohan leads Pons and Chili, but Pons loses the front end on the exit of a right turn, and Chili hits the fallen rider or bike and is thrown into the air. The marshalls put Pons on the stretcher like there are snipers in the bleachers, and the question of race organization comes to mind again.

500cc classification

MotoGP_race_report
Name_of_race = Yugoslavian Grand Prix
Year_of_race = 1990
Previous_race_in_season = 1990 Austrian Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 1990 Dutch TT
Previous_year's_race = 1989 Yugoslavian Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = None