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World Championship Road Race Series Round 6: Catalunyan ~ra.nd Prix Fortuna Honda could do no better than ninth after overheating and losing ground in the early stages. Dutchman Henk van den Lagemaat was 18th and last finisher, 14 seconds behind Katja Poensgen (both Dark Dog Molenaar Honda) after falling and remounting. Telefonica MoviStar Honda's Dani Pedrosa seized control of a desperately close 125cc race four corners from home, ousting rostrum firsttimer Thomas Luthi. Alex de Angelis was a close third, with Exalt Aprilia rider Steve Jenkner just losing touch in the closing stages. They were the Shinya Nakano (56) and his Yamaha have been in excellentfonn of late. Here he leads Marco Melandri (33). Tohru Ukawa (11) and Nicky Hayden (69). on his way to a fifth. survivors of a leading pack that had numbered eight at the halfway point, before crashes and collisions whittled it down. The first to tumble in the close company had been Australian Casey Stone'r after leading briefly; Safilo Oxydo teammate Lucio Cecchinello MOTOGP had led for longer but retired after a fierce, as the leaders calmed the pace bad tire choice. Pole qualifier Pablo Nieto had also The first half of the race was predictable enough but exciting nonethe- to save tires in the blazing heat. fallen out of the top group. less, with the pack all close and with Biaggi taking a flyer from the His teammate Jacque was just third row behind them. But by the end behind and also starting a backward near collision sent him grasstracking. Capirossi led away from Rossi, "I wasn't racing today - just surviving," he said. of the first lap, Rossi was in front, and 18 JUNE 25, 2003' cue I e n e vv s to take over for an almost race-long Barros was behind him but started to A second successive weekend of blazing heat knocked it out of the riders and the tires at a track where even in cold conditions there is plenty of sliding around. Saturday was even hotter than Friday, with track temperatures reaching punishing levels. Even so, most riders improved their times - except the first two. They were the protagonists of Mugello, with Valentino Rossi creeping up to take pole late In the first session., but by an Impressive four tenths from Loris Capirossi. The Honda man complained about the loss of grip in the heat, at a track with long corners where the bike is on its side for long periods. "I'm getting such a lot of wheelspin," he said. "I won't make my final tire choice until tomorrow, when'we see if conditions are as bad as today." Capirossi was even more sideways, on the slide-happy Ducati. "It should be fun to watch," he said. "But it's hard to ride. You carry a lot of speed through the long comers here, and you're using the edge of the tire. We're getting sideways a lot of the time." Times were close behind him on a hotly disputed front row, which had seen Colin Edwards putting up a strong challenge on an Aprilia transformed by some sort of a settings breakthrough, as well as an early run by the remarkable rookie Makoto Tamada and fast Yamaha man Shinya Nakano. All changed late in the session, however, when Olivier Jacque found himself following Rossi, and able to use him to claim his first front row on a four-stroke. "It's not so much follOWing his lines - they're the same as mine. It's the sUpstream," he said. "This is a long straight, so you can get a big advantage. " His late run knocked Sete Gibemau down to fourth on his Friday time by less than a hundredth of a second. "That's okay. I'm still on the front row," he said. Alex Barros also had a good second session, cutting more than half a second to iead the second from Shinya Nakano by three-hundredths of a second, the pair of Yamahas a similar margin ahead of Edwards, who was disappointed to have his first front-row start snatched away by the narrowest of margins. Carlos Checa's Yamaha completed the second row. The third was led by Max Biaggi, nine tenths off Rossi's time. , '~ can't remember the last time I started from the third row," he said. "We have two problems: wheelying and th.e lack of traction, and we can't seem to do anything about it." He was less than a tenth ahead of- Tamada, with factory-Honda mounted teammate Tohru Ukawa next and Troy Bayliss completing the row, 1.2 seconds off pole. "We improved on yesterday, but we're stili missing something with the front end," Bayliss said. "But I feel in good shape. We have to keep on keeping on." John Hopkins led row four on the lone Suzuki, battling pain from his banged back as well as a lack of traction, but saying: "We found some improvement from yesterday, but it just doesn't show on the lap time." Marco Melandri was alongside, and crasher Norlyuki Haga on t/"le second AprlUa, with Kawasaki wild card Akira Yanagawa next up - once again a wild card on a different chassis faster than the team regulars: Garry McCoy half a second away in 19th, and Andrew Pitt succumbing to a heavy faU in the last session and ending up 22nd and last. One of the happiest men on the grid was McWilliams, leading row five. "I never thought I'd be pleased with 17th," he said, but it marked another significant improvement for the brand new Proton V-five after two almost full ovemight sessions by the mechanics raised the ride height so he wasn't dragging the belly in the bends. He cut his lap time by 1.3 seconds. lilcky Hayden was alongside, continuing to struggle on yet another new track (though he had tested here in the winter), then McCoy, Honda rookie Kiyonari, Aoki on the second Proton (missing much of the fi.,t day with fuel injection problems blamed on dirty fuel), and Pitt. slide, with Checa and Nakano ready Gibernau ahead of Biaggi in third. battle. drop back immediately, blaming a Rossi carried the pace of the race,