Ukawa leads Honda charge in Sepang

Tohru Ukawa blazed to provisional pole in Sepang today, setting himself at the head of an all-Honda four-stroke front row ahead of Sunday’s MotoGP round in Malaysia.

The Japanese rider’s time of 2’05.106 was fractions ahead of his Repsol Honda teammate Valentino Rossi, with the other full-factory rider, Daijiro Katoh, in third with a 2’05.356.

Garry McCoy was fastest two-stroke, his track record of two podiums in the last two races here looks odds-on to continue. Despite giving away a full 11mph on top speed to Ukawa, his time of 2’05.743 on the Red Bull Yamaha was good enough for a provisional fifth ahead of Max Biaggi on the four-stroke Yamaha M1.

MotoGP:

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

250:

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

125:

1)D Pedrosa 2)M Poggiali 3)A Vincent 4)S Jenkner 5)P Nieto 6)K Nohles 7)Y Ui 8)L Cecchinello 9)S Bianco 10)A Ballerini 11)M Azuma 12)A Dovizioso 13)S Sanna 14)M Giansanti 15)A de Angelis 16)J Olive 17) J Lorenzo 18)H Barbera 19)M Kallio 20)G Talmasci 21)G Borsoi 22)M Fabrizio 23)A Angeloni 24)N Ueda 25)S Perugini 26)A Baldolini 27)I Toth 28)T Luthi 29)M Simoncelli 30)M Sabbatani