Exactly 30 years ago Kevin Schwantz contested his last full season in the MotoGP with the number 1 on the fairing of his Suzuki, which until the previous season had only seen the legendary number 34. A world championship, that of 1993, which however had not allowed Kevin to celebrate in the best way a goal he had been pursuing for a lifetime due to the injury that had definitively taken his great rival but above all friend Wayne Rainey out of the game.
They are P300.it we have already had the pleasure of hosting Kevin in 2022, when he told us about his life at Suzuki. A “sporting life” that would end with his retirement in 1995 at Mugello in a press conference full of emotions and tears. In the interview we propose in this article, Schwantz tells us about the 1994 season, the one with the number 1 as reigning world champion.
Kevin, how did you spend the winter between 1993 and 1994 as world champion after what happened to Rainey at Misano and how much influence did your mountain bike wrist injury have on the 1994 season?
“At the end of 1993 I told Suzuki that I would do my best to race in 1994, but I didn’t really know if I could do it or not. I wanted to see month by month, depending on how the tests went. Three weeks before the start of the championship I broke my arm and that certainly gave me some extra motivation, because I had to recover from an injury that was my mistake. I was kind of excited to do the 1994 season, even before I got injured and got this extra motivation.”.
Was the 1994 Suzuki more competitive than the 1993 version? What did it give you that was different?
“I don’t think I’ve ever driven the real 1994 version, I can’t say how much better it was! (ride, ndr) I think it was still a good bike, there were no big evolutions compared to the 1993 one, which was a very consistent bike. The 1994 bike was better in some areas and worse in others, it was simply a more complicated package to handle. The power was delivered better, but in corners we were absolutely not at the same level as in 1993. There were no big differences between the two bikes, I think more than anything that it was Honda that took a big step forward and this put us in difficulty ”.
What did it mean for you to leave the number 34 for the 1?
“I still wore the 34 on the lower part of the 1! I think it was important for Suzuki to see a number 1 on one of their bikes, on a promotional level it changes a lot. Keeping the 34 would have been nice, but it was the right choice. Everyone says that the number 1 is heavy to wear…”.
Did you already know, at the beginning of the season, that Doohan would be so competitive?
“We had seen his strength in 1992, then he got injured but by the end of 1993 he was back to being competitive. From the news we had received about the tests, he had been very strong almost everywhere. We knew that Mick and Honda would always be a danger, especially with Mick healthy”.
What differences were there between your Suzuki and its rivals, especially Honda and Cagiva?
“Honda’s strengths were the usual ones, top speed and better acceleration, but these also made it more difficult to ride and manage over time. Suzuki has always had a better overall package, because the power delivery wasn’t as violent. Suzuki was DOHC and Honda SOHC, so Honda accelerated more quickly and directly. They invented the ‘big bang’ engine and this had a big impact on the bike’s power distribution. Honda was never the best in braking, Suzuki had a lower centre of gravity and even if we weren’t the best on corner exit, we had an advantage in braking.”
For you, 1994 was an injury-hit year, but which victory from that championship do you remember most fondly?
“I only won two races, Japan and Donington. I definitely choose Donington: I injured both hands, towards the halfway point of the race I was seventh or eighth but I recovered and won, considering my condition it was special. It was my last victory in a Grand Prix.”
Do you have any regrets when you look back on that season?
“I wouldn’t say so. The only thing is that I should have stopped at the end of the year, instead I tried to get myself back in order by having an operation on my wrist and doing some things a little differently than usual. As for the season itself, I have no regrets, I gave it my all, I wore the number 1 and I really wanted to race to the best of my ability. Injuries are part of the game”.
Is there a particular episode that you want to remember from those years?
“The whole title season was great. The Assen race was spectacular, one of the last we won that year. We continued to work and build what we then conquered. I don’t remember anything from 1994 that really stands out: six weeks after the arm injury I won in Japan, and it wasn’t even my last time ever there because in 1995 I finished sixth, and overall I won two of my favorite Grands Prix, so in a certain sense it was still special.”
SOURCE: P300.it
