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.

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.

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.

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:

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:

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:

Championship standings after the race (500cc)

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

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.

References