Rossi steals pole position

Valentino Rossi has snatched the pole position for Sunday’s MotoGP fifth round at Mugello, Italy. Just beating Loris Capirossi’s time on his last lap.

Capirossi didn’t manage to better his time from the first qualifying session but he had set such a pace that it took Rossi the whole session to beat it by a mere 0.027 seconds.

The heat at the Italian circuit caused problems for most of the teams on Saturday with many complaining of mechanical problems or reduced grip from the scorching tarmac.

Only half the field managed to better Friday’s times and it took most of the hour long session before the higher times started to appear.

Max Biaggi was looking likely to take the third spot on the front row but Yamaha rider Shinya Nakano slipped in to steal it by just 0.035 seconds.

The Proton team of Jeremy McWilliams and Nobuatso Aoki had their brand new KR5 V5 four-stroke bikes out for the session and they are expected to race them for the first time on Sunday. Despite the machines having fuelling difficulties in the heat, McWilliams managed to take the British built bike to 19th place on the grid.

Troy Bayliss snatched the top speed record away from his Ducati team-mate Loris Capirossi, taking his Desmosedici to a staggering 205.6mph and winning a Gericom laptop computer in the newly created prize for breaking the speed record.

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