Tetsuya Harada recovered from an early session crash to destroy the opposition at Phillip Island today – breaking
Shinya Nakano's all time lap record by 0.088secs on his way to taking pole by 0.570secs over Ulsterman Jeremy Mc
Williams.
Katoh had put his Motegi woes behind him in Friday first qualifying to set the pace from Fonsi Nieto, while Harada, who had closed to within 24 points of his countryman after victory at Motegi (with 25 available for each victory), took third ahead of McWilliams.
Into today's session and Katoh's best lap of 1min 34.739secs from yesterday remained the time to beat, but Harada was closing and with ten minutes gone had cut the gap to 0.266secs as he moved ahead of Nieto.
Katoh himself took just a few more minutes before he began setting all time fastest sectors, but was unable to carry his early lap speed all the way around the windy circuit and returned to the pits with 15minutes gone.
20mins gone and Fonsi Nieto proved that yesterday's best of the rest time behind Katoh was no fluke as he closed to just 0.017secs of the Honda hero. Katoh responded with some fastest ever sector times - but before he could complete the lap Nieto had broken the timing beam 0.115secs inside the Japanese riders best from Friday to lead the 35 rider field, while Katoh's lap, despite being a personal best, slipped away.
Also on the move was McWilliams, who is rumoured to be riding with new parts previously to have been used by the injured (and not riding)
Marco Melandri, as the Ulsterman jumped up a place to third, while Katoh finally focussed his efforts and retook pole by 0.256secs.
Not top be outdone was Harada, who at least needed to be the top Aprilia, and sure enough almost exactly on the half way mark the #31 moved into second – but he then lost the front of his MS sponsored machine into a left hander and slid, with style, onto the grass before casually stepping to his feet and glancing at his now seriously second hand racer.
