Jacque closes in on Rossi

Olivier Jacque has stormed up the time sheets in the first qualifying session at the Estoril GP, knocking three seconds off his practice time to take second place on the provisional grid. But it wasn’t enough to knock Valentino Rossi off the top spot.

Most riders cut around a second off their practice lap times but Gauloises Yamaha rider Jacque went all out to improve his time by just under three seconds and jump from 14th in the morning’s practice up to second on the provisional grid.

Rossi continued the hot pace he set in the morning to take the provisional pole with a 1:39.391 lap, 0.289 seconds ahead of Jacque. But the top eight places were hotly contested with all eight riders finishing less than a second behind him.

Max Biaggi pushed his Camel Honda up to a provisional third place on the grid, team-mate Tohru Ukawa taking the final place on the provisional front row.

Sete Gibernau dropped back from second in the practice to fifth in the first qualifying session despite improving his time by 0.8 seconds. Carlos Checa and Loris Capirossi dropped back with him to take sixth and seventh respectively, while Jeremy McWilliams made a surprise appearance in provisional eighth on his four-stroke Proton V5, with a time of 1:40.325.

To comment on this story click the link on the right to go to our GP discussion board.