Motorcycling: British Grand Prix: Fogarty is poleaxed by flair of Cadalora

CARL FOGARTY, for about one and a half glorious minutes here yesterday, produced possibly the most inspired riding of his racing career to top the timesheet during the first qualifying session for tomorrow's British 500cc Grand Prix. But with 10 minutes to go in the hour-long practice session, the 27-year-old from Blackburn was knocked off the provisional pole by three-tenths of a second as Italy's Luca Cadalora coaxed some extra grunt from his Yamaha.

Fogarty, with a time of 1min 34.910sec, and Cadalora, who stopped the clock at 1:34.616, were the only two riders to break the 1:35 mark as the overcast conditions and the odd shower affected the grip of the tyres.

Kevin Schwantz, the world championship leader, who took a hat-trick here with his victory in 1991, was one of three riders to fall when he lost contact with his Suzuki on only his second lap of qualifying. The American was taken to the medical centre but was cleared to resume practice and recorded the eighth-fastest time.

Schwantz's leading challenger for the title, the champion Wayne Rainey, was third quickest, two- tenths of a second ahead of another Briton, Niall Mackenzie, who is racing a privately entered Yamaha.

But Fogarty, the three-times Formula One motorcycling world champion and the present world endurance champion, provided the greatest encouragement among the home hopefuls as he took full advantage of his wild-card entry to outpace his more illustrious rivals. Fogarty has been given a one-off ride by the Italian Cagiva team, led by the former champion Giacomo Agostini, who has his eye on the Briton for a permanent place in the team.

'It will be better when we get the gearing right and we need to get the throttle response better,' Fogarty said. 'Then I can go a bit quicker.'

Fogarty showed just how much inspiration can be gained from competing at home, and against the odds. On his 17th lap of the afternoon, he leapt to the lead, where he stayed for most of the rest of the hour until Cadalora beat him by inches. Fogarty returned to the fray for three more laps but was unable to regain the pole.

The cancelled South African Grand Prix has been replaced by a meeting at Jarama, Madrid, on 26 September - the third world championship round to take place in Spain this season.

BRITISH GRAND PRIX (Donington Park) Leading qualifying times: 500cc: 1 L Cadalora (It) Yamaha 1min 34.61sec; 2 C Fogarty (GB) Cagiva 1:34.91; 3 W Rainey (US) Yamaha 1:35.18; 4 N Mackenzie (GB) Yamaha 1:35.38; 5 A Barros (Bra) Suzuki 1:35.65; 6 S Itoh (Japan) Honda 1:35.82.

Other times, Sporting Digest, page 51