Pacific GP. First practice

Provisional second place for Rossi, Elias and Pedrosa in Motegi
The three of them will try to improve their position tomorrow and stand out as candidates for the victory on Sunday
MotoGP has experienced today ten very intense final minutes of the first qualifying practice with Rossi, Checa, Biaggi and Gibernau fighting for the top spot. While Biaggi, Gibernau and Checa where taking turns in the lead, Rossi was on a surprising tenth place, despite having been in the front during a large part of the timed session. Fortunately his last lap allowed him to jump up to second place, one tenth behind the fastest time set by Gibernau. Nicky Hayden, second during some instants of the session, kept himself among the top five during the practices but lost positions in the final moments, finally finishing eleventh.In the 250, Toni Elias is back on track after his disappointing crash at the Rio Grand Prix, showing that his hunger for victory is still alive. The brave Repsol rider set the fourth fastest time in the morning and the second in the afternoon, despite leading the time sheets during a big part of the first timed session. Frenchman De Puniet set the fastest clock of the afternoon, while Fonsi Nieto, with countless technical problems, had to settle for the fifteenth position. Sebastián Porto was eighth, Héctor Faubel twentieth and Joan Olivé twenty-seventh.In the 125, Dani Pedrosa missed the top spot of the first qualifying practice by only a tenth of a second, finishing second behind Dovizioso. After focussing on the setting of his bike for the race on Sunday, Pedrosa decided to launch his attack ten minutes before the end of the session and despite having the pole during the last instants he couldn’t hinder Dovizioso from snatching it in his last fast lap. Héctor Barberá, after quite a bad start of the timed session with a crash due to a Japanese wild-card rider, managed to finish seventh, while his teammate Pablo Nieto, focussed on his Aprilia’s set-up, finished seventeenth.