Rossi takes pole at damp Assen

Valentino Rossi splashed to his sixth pole of the season at Assen today, ahead of Saturday’s MotoGP round.

The Honda rider made the most of the two combined sessions as bad weather disrupted normal qualifying. The first session started damp and just as soon as the track began to dry and the times pick up, the heavens opened and drowned anyone’s chances of improving on morning practice. The forecast for tomorrow is more of the same.

But the rain was good news for Honda’s rivals. Both Yamaha and Suzuki continued to improve with both Max Biaggi, teammate Carlos Checa and Suzuki’s Kenny Roberts out-qualifying Rossi’s partner Tohru Ukawa.

The weather levelled the playing field for the two-strokes: Loris Capirossi takes up fourth spot on the front row, with the other West Honda Pons NSR of Alex Barros right behind him. Britain’s Jeremy McWilliams was ninth.

500s

1)V Rossi 2)M Biaggi 3)K Roberts 4)L Capirossi 5)A Barros 6)C Checa 7)T Harada 8)T Ukawa 9)J McWilliams 10)J Hopkins 11)A Hoffman 13)N Aoki 14)S Nakano 15)J van de Goorbergh 16)S Gibernau 17)D Kato 18)P Riba 19)N Abe 20)O Jacque 21)A Ryo

250s

1)M Melandri 2)R de Puniet 3)F Nieto 4)T Elias 5)S Porto 6)F Battaini 7)C Stoner 8)R Waldmann 9)R Locatelli 10)V Philippe 11)S Yuzy 12)A Debon 13)N Matsudo 14)D Checa 15)H Aoki 16)J Janssen 17)R Rolfo 18)E Alzamora 19)R Jara 20)D Heidolf 21)H Marchand 22)L Haslam 23)H Faubel 24)J Vincent 25)G Pieper 26)T Sekiguchi 27)J Boesveld

125s

1)D Pedrosa 2)L Cecchinello 3)A de Angelis 4)M Kallio 5)A Vincent 6)M Poggiali 7)A Rodriguez 8)S Jenkner 9)G Scalvini 10)S Bianco 11)P Nieto 12)J Olive 13)M Azuma 14)G Borsoi 15)Y Ui 16)J Lorenzo 17)A Ballerini 18)S Sanna 19)A Dovizioso 20)G Talmasci 21)J Smrz 22)A Baldolini 23)J Hules 24)H Barbera 25) M Fabrizio 26)F Lai 27)C Davies 28)I Toth 29)M Giansanti 30)M Angeloni 31)S Aoyama 32)L Camier 33)R Schouten 34)R Gevers 35)A den Bekker