Just over 15mins left and Katoh's teammate Emilio Alzamora attempted to join the fight at the front by moving up three places (and 0.5secs) to seventh, to move within 0.4secs of the front row.
As the final ten minutes approached Harada was again on his fastest ever lap of the weekend – but would it be enough to catch Katoh? When the #31 Aprilia broke the timing beam Harada would have been disappointed to see that he was still 0.397secs away.
However, Harada was soon to find his second place under threat from McWilliams as the Assen winner closed to within 0.246secs of pole with his first improvement of the session, with 9 minutes to go.
Into the last five minutes and Katoh looked to have things under control – although McWilliams was still too close for comfort, and Harada can never be ruled out.
That would prove to be the case as Harada put in one of his usually stunning end-of-session efforts to take pole away from Katoh by the smallest of margins, before going even quicker on his next lap to stretch the gap to 0.212secs, as he smashed the circuit lap record once again.
Smashing something else was Mc
Williams, who crashed once again, and although he himself seemed fortunately ok, his #99 Aprilia received yet another battering.
In the frantic final few minutes and Fonsi Nieto crept up to fourth ahead of Melandri, who himself looked capable of challenging the top two – before losing time in the final sector, ending any threat from the young Italian.
Full times to follow…
1. Harada
2. Katoh +0.212secs
3. McWilliams +0.458secs
4. Nieto +0.595secs
5. Melandri +0.713secs
6. Alzamora +0.782secs
7. Matsudo +0.843secs
8. Checa +1.004secs
