Tetsuya Harada came out on top in a battle of wits with title adversary Daijiro Katoh in the fight for provisional pole position in the GP250 Pacific Grand Prix.
Aprilia rider Harada took the advantage by 0.420secs, as the pair dominated the opening qualifying session at Motegi, leaving
Marco Melandri, Jeremy Mc
Williams and Emilio Alzamora to battle for the remaining front row spots.
At the end of the session, Katoh held a half-second advantage over Melandri, with McWilliams over a second off the pace in completing the provisional front row. Katoh's Honda team-mate Alzamora struggled with a cheek injury, eventually slid down the classification to qualify in eighth, behind late improvers Roberto Locatelli, Naoki Matsudo and Alex Debon.
Locatelli recovered from a mid-session crash to set his fastest time, which was good enough to see off the fastest of the Yamahas, Matsudo, by just 0.054secs.
Spaniards David Checa and Fonsi Nieto headed the third row, ahead of Franco Battaini and
Randy de Puniet, but Roberto Rolfo and Sebastien Porto could manage only 14th and 15th places, leaving them on row four, just ahead of Alex Hofmann. Wild card rider Nobuyuki Ohsaki filled 13th place on his SP Tadao Yamaha, the second best place for the marque in the session.
Britain's Jay Vincent, still acclimatising to his QUB GP250 Yamaha after a part season in GP500 with Pulse, carded a lowly 29th best time. Lady racer Katja Poensgen brought up the rear on the Shell Advance Honda.
Full times to follow....
