Katoh confirms Motegi pole

Daijiro Katoh will start from pole position in Sunday’s Japanese round of the MotoGP championship after no-one challenged his time of 1.49.052, set during Friday’s qualifying, in Saturday’s sessions.

The only man on the move was West Honda rider Loris Capirossi on the NSR two-stroke, who launched himself on to the front row of the grid with a time of 1.49.169, just behind Yamaha’s Max Biaggi.

Newly crowned champion Valentino Rossi slipped from his provisional front row slot, despite going two tenths faster than on Friday. His Repsol Honda teams said the Italian star is suffering from a painful stomach upset.

MotoGP:

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

250:

1)F Nieto 2)M Melandri 3)R de Puniet 4)Y Takahashi 5)T Elias 6)S Porto 7)E Alzamora 8)R Rolfo 9)F Battaini 10)A Debon 11)S Yuzy 12)N Matsudo 13)H Aoyama 14)N Onsaki 15)T Kayoe 16)R Yokoe…22)J Vincent …26)L Haslam

125:

1)D Pedrosa 2)M Poggiali 3)S Jenker 4)A Vincent 5)A Dovizioso 6)L Cecchinello 7)P Nieto 8)H Barbera 9)G Borsoi 10)H Ogata 11)M Azuma 12)J Lorenzo 13)Y Ui 14)M Fabrizio 15)S Bianco 16)S Sanna…35)C Davies