Barros back on top, Down Under

Alex Barros has continued his excellent run of form on the Honda RCV with a provisional pole start in Friday’s qualifying ahead of the Australian MotoGP round on Sunday.

The West Honda rider ‘s time of 1’33.002 around the 2.78 mile Phillip Island circuit was just a tenth ahead of home favourite Garry McCoy on the Red Bull Yamaha YZR two-stroke. As if to prove the strokers have one last hurrah left in them, Jeremy McWilliams on the Proton KR and Jurgen van de Doorbergh both out qualified world champion Valentino Rossi for the remaining provisional spots on the grid.

Another Aussie, Andrew Pitt, on the Kawasaki ZX-RR four-stroke, was able to make some of his local knowledge count. He lifted himself to 15th, ahead of established four-stroke GP riders Carlos Checa on the Yamaha M1 and Sete Gibernau on the Suzuki GSV-R.

MotoGP:

1)A Barros 2)G McCoy 3)J McWilliams 4)J van de Goorbergh 5)V Rossi 6)D Kato 7)T Ukawa 8)M Biaggi 9)N Aoki 10)L Caipirossi 11)R Laconi 12)O Jacque 13)S Nakano 14)K Roberts 15)A Pitt 16)JL Cardoso 17)C Checa 18)S Gibernau 19)T Harada 20)N Abe 21)J Hopkins 22)S Itoh

250:

1)T Elias 2)M Melandri 3)F Battaini 4)F Nieto 5)R de Puniet 6)S Porto 7)R Rolfo 8)J Hules 9)E Alzamora 10)C Stoner 11)A Debon 13)R Locatelli 14)N Matsudo 15)H Aoki 16)S Yuzy 17)J Vincent 18)E Nigon 19)D Heidolf 20)L Haslam 21)J Smrz 22)H Faubel 23)R Jara 24)H Marchand 25)R Holland

125:

1)S Jenkner 2)M Poggiali 3)A de Angelis 4)P Nieto 5)D Pedrosa 6)S Sanna 7)Y Ui 8)A Dovizioso 9)L Cecchinello 10)M Azuma 11)S Perugini 12)H Barbera 14)G Borsoi 15)S Bianco 16)M Fabrizio 17)J Olive 18)G Talmasci 19)M Giansanti 20)M Kallio 21)A Vincent 22)J Lorenzo 23)M Simoncelli 24)K Nohles 25)A Baldolini 26)N Ueda 27)C Davies 28)M Sabbatani 29)M Angeloni 30)T Luth 31)I Toth 32)J Waters 33)D Giuseppetti 34)C Pistoni