As the two-thirds marked approached 125cc World Champion Roberto Locatelli, who has shown flashes of brilliance throughout the year, put his Aprilia onto the provisional front row with a lap 0.399secs slower than Katoh, as he pushed Mc
Williams onto row two.
Next to show their potential was David Checa, who put the privateer Fomma Honda up to a magnificent sixth with a 1min 34.950secs effort, putting the Spaniard just 0.582secs away from poll – and giving him the honour of top privateer, with Roberto Rolfo one place behind.
As the last ten minutes approached Harada returned to the track on his spare bike, and proved that it was capable of pole by immediately setting his personal best lap of the weekend so far to cut the gap to 0.178secs, with McWilliams proving he could keep pace by slotting in behind Harada as Nieto was pushed to the outside of row one.
Meanwhile, Katoh had returned to the Telefonica pits after smoke began emitting from one of the cylinders of his Honda, and some frantic dissembling and problem solving followed as the Gresini squad attempted to fix the problem before the session finished.
Katoh returned to the track with 7mins left – and began his final run, while McWilliams was already well into his stride and pushed Harada out of second by just 0.009secs, as the Assen victor attempted to make it three poles in three years at the splendid sweeping circuit.
Less than 3mins to go and Locatelli shot into second, and needed just 0.037secs to overtake the Japanese – but that honour would go to the fellow Aprilia of Harada just seconds later when he completed an admirable recovery from his early crash to go 0.042secs clear of the field.
However, that was nothing compared with his next lap that saw him soar an enormous 0.701secs quicker than his new pole time! Meanwhile McWilliams went 0.570secs to bump Katoh from second as the Japanese rider found himself with unusually little response to the Aprilia onslaught.
Full times to follow…
1. Harada
2. McWilliams +0.570secs
3. Katoh +0.743secs
4. Locatelli +0.780secs
5. Nieto +0.999secs
6. Battaini +1.164secs
7. Hofmann +1.237secs
8. Porto +1.262secs
