Rossi tops Brno free practice

Valentino Rossi topped this morning’s free practice ahead of Sunday’s Czech MotoGP. The Italian’s time of 2:00.943 was four tenths of a second faster than second place man Alex Barros around the 3.38-mile Brno circuit.

Barros was the only two-stroke to crack the top five. Daijiro Kato proved why he deserves a an RCV – on his first outing on the all-conquering Honda V5 the Fortuna rider went third fastest.

Despite intensive work on the chassis over the summer break by Yamaha, its M1s only just scraped into the top 10. Carlos Checa going ninth fastest, while his soon-to-be ex teammate Max Biaggi went 10th – almost a second slower than Rossi’s time, even though Biaggi’s bike was fastest through the speed trap at 182mph.

Meanwhile Britain’s Jeremy McWilliams’s was 15th – his Proton KR nearly 15mph down on Biaggi’s missile.

1)V Rossi 2)A Barros 3)D Kato 4)T Ukawa 5)K Roberts 6) S Gibernau 8)J Hopkins 9)C Checa 10)M Biaggi 11)N Abe 12)R Laconi 13)S Nakano 14)O Jacque 15)J McWilliams 16)T Harada 17)A Ryo 18)N Aoki 19)J van de Goorbergh 20)G McCoy 21)P Riba 22)S Guintoli