French GP. 2nd qualifying practice

Valentino Rossi and Fonsi Nieto set the pace in France
Valentino Rossi, despite having to fight hard against Carlos Checa, Max Biaggi, Loris Capirossi and his teammate Tohru Ukawa, has been able to take his fourth consecutive pole of the season with only seven tenths of a second ahead. Today, the second qualifying session has witnessed an intense fight for the first place, with these five riders constantly changing places during the last minutes. Tohru Ukawa, one of the many riders who have been on provisional pole this afternoon and who is celebrating today his twenty-ninth birthday, was finally fourth fastest, only one tenth of a second behind Rossi’s best time. Fonsi Nieto is proving to be the strongest man in the 250cc category. After achieving his first victory two weeks ago in the Spanish Grand Prix, today, at the French circuit of Le Mans he has shown again, that he has a lot of potential and is a firm aspirant to the championship title. Fonsi’s best time has been half a second faster than the time of the second qualified, the local rider Randy De Puniet. His teammate Toni Elías, who is improving day by day on his Aprilia, has made the fifth fastest time after taking the provisional pole in this morning’s free practice. In the 125cc, Daniel Pedrosa as well as Joan Olivé have considerably enhanced their positions thanks to improvements in their bike’s settings. Pedrosa, sixteenth yesterday, has been two seconds faster than yesterday, thus jumping up to the third position, while his teammate Olivé, eighteenth yesterday, has made up four positions thanks to a one second improvement.