Rossi grabs provisional pole

The first round of the MotoGP world championship kicked off the struggle for supremacy with Italian rivals Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi finishing the opening qualifying session separated by just 0.2s on Friday.

The morning’s free practice saw Ducati rider Loris Capirossi topping the time sheets with a time of 2:04.604, 0.02s ahead of Valentino Rossi.

All that changed for the qualifying session in the afternoon when the rain started to fall. The changeable weather caught many of the teams out making it almost impossible to choose the right tyres, with most riders completing less than 10 laps.

Capirossi dropped down to finish 15th over-all, three seconds down on his time from the morning.

Honda dominated the top of the table in the afternoon with Rossi taking provisional pole, clocking a best time of 2:06.838, but his closest rival Max Biaggi was only 0.2 seconds off his pace while completing only half the number of laps.

Biaggi’s team-mate Tohru Ukawa was third with Fortuna Yamaha rider Carlos Checa completing the provisional front row just half a second down on Rossi.

250cc world champion Marco Melandri crashed heavily after only eight laps of the morning session.

The Fortuna Yamaha rider highsided doing 125mph around the T12 corner just after the hairpin causing the session to be red-flagged. The turn features very little run-off and Melandri was hit by his bike breaking his ankle in two places, his upper leg, and his nose.

He was airlifted to the local medical centre and is being kept under observation for 48 hours. Doctors estimate that he could take up to three months to recover.

Nicky Hayden, Noriyuki Haga, Daijiro Kato and Andrew Pitt also crashed but will all be fit for tomorrow’s practice and qualifying sessions.

After being forced to run its old two-stroke machines for the first race, the Proton team’s luck went from bad to worse. Jeremy McWilliams engine seized in the qualifying session, leaving him with a time outside the MotoGP limit of 107 per cent of the leaders time and not yet qualified for the race on Sunday.

Saturday will see the second qualifying session starting at 5am UK time, with the race starting 5am Sunday. So check back regularly for updates on motorcyclenews.com and pick up this week’s MCN, out now, for your free 16-page GP preview.

Times:

V. Rossi: 2:06.838, M. Biaggi: 2:07.092, T. Ukawa: 2:07.298, C. Checa: 2:07.426, M. Tamada: 2:08.103, S. Gibernau: 2:08.251, K. Roberts: 2:08.389, A. Barros: 2:08.670, C. Edwards: 2:08.785, S. Nakano: 2:08.930, D. Kato: 2:09.104, J. Hopkins: 2:09.141, T. Bayliss: 2:09.147, N. Abe: 2:09.162, L. Capirossi: 2:09.325, O. Jacque: 2:11.924, C. Burns: 2:13.074, Nicky Hayden: 2:13.588, Andrew Pitt: 2:13.871

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