Biaggi roars to record as home hopes dim

No wonder Britain's lone regular rider on motorcycling's grand prix circuit, Jeremy McWilliams, sometimes feels that although he shares the same tracks, same risks and not dissimilar talent to world champion Valentino Rossi, he remains in a different world.

Rossi, who lives in a £1m apartment in Knightsbridge, today continues to defend his title at the Cinzano British Grand Prix at Donington Park, where he and his manager have been discussing with Honda whether an offer of about £10m to sign up for the next two years is enough to keep hold of the greatest talent of his generation. However, Ducati know that Rossi, being Italian, has a lifelong affection for their machines, and have suggested an enticement of nearly £7m for 2004 alone.

McWilliams, 29, has been involved on and off in grand prix racing for over a decade, and though he is highly respected by his fellow riders, his rewards have been minimal by comparison with those of Rossi. At the same time, he is sometimes made to feel like the token Brit in a series that demands a truly international panoply of riders.

As a result, he rarely has a machine to match his considerable ability. This season it is the Kenny Roberts' team's four-stroke Proton V5, which is a masterpiece of engineering, but with less than 24 hours' racing time under its tyres, is still so experimental that for yesterday's final qualifying, the team reverted to last season's two-stroke, which left McWilliams in 19th place, more than two seconds slower than the pole pacesetter, Italy's Max Biaggi (Honda).

McWilliams says the four-stroke bike has great potential and amazing straight-line speed, but unlike Rossi's and Biaggi's Hondas, is still using races rather than practice as its proving grounds.

"In a way, I've always enjoyed being an underdog, because you enjoy any successful moments all the more, but for most of the British riders over the years, they have got only a few chances, and if things didn't work out straight away, they got dropped from the factory teams," said McWilliams.

Roberts knows that in McWilliams he has a rider with the experience to have an input into the bike's long-term development. Unhappily, there is not even a lot of comfort in thinking that today McWilliams ought to have home advantage. Since moving to England to escape the overdemanding attention of fans in Italy, Rossi has treated Donington as his home track; he has achieved five victories here, including the last three grands prix. "I love it here," he said. "The track suits me - very fast in places, but difficult as well. The only part I hate is the hairpin." What is more, most of this year's contenders for what has become a tougher season for Rossi than previous ones also claim to enjoy Donington.

Second place in the world championship is held by Sete Gibernau of Spain, who, like Rossi, has won three races so far. He believes his Honda is suited to the circuit. Biaggi has had several Donington victories, while Troy Bayliss (Ducati) is a former British Superbike champion. Marco Melandri (Yamaha) lives in Derby, while his team-mate Carlos Checa is based in Yorkshire. Loris Capirossi (Ducati) has had four wins on the track. And even the home crowd will not be entirely behind McWilliams, because Rossi is hugely popular.

Starting positions in bike racing are less significant than in Formula One, but Rossi was disappointed to finish yesterday's session only fourth fastest after setting a qualifying record of 1min 30.938sec, just seven minutes after starting. Towards the end, he had trouble with the front tyre "and the steering was not right".

Biaggi, a long-time adversary of Rossi's, attacked the champion's time with mean determination. "In the last five minutes, I gave it everything," he said.

And everything led to a record lap of 1min 30.740sec, with Gibernau second (1min 30.862sec) and Melandri third (1min 30.926sec), but the first 11 riders all finished within one second of each other.

Britain's 16-year-old Chaz Davies qualified for today's 250cc race in 17th place on his Aprilia.