Advantage Rossi, but Ducatis on front row.

Valentino Rossi set a pace as scorching as his fever at Welkom today, beating the previous circuit record by over a second - but he didn't have things all his own way and only took provisional pole after the hour had officially finished, responding to the challenge of the Ducatis - led by a determined Loris Capirossi.

In fact the provisional top eight included five former World Champions, and representatives from Honda, Ducati, Aprilia and Yamaha, all separated by 0.8secs, to illustrate the competitiveness of the star studded series.

Free practice had seen an ill Rossi set the pace from Max Biaggi, Loris Capirossi. Sete Gibernau, Jeremy McWilliams (on his two-stroke) and Troy Bayliss, confirming the Hondas pace, but also that Ducati are rapidly stepping up to their mark.

McWilliams meanwhile, was embarrassing the likes of Yamaha, Suzuki, Aprilia and Kawasaki, while Ukawa and Hopkins both fell.

Not riding this morning, or indeed it seems for the rest of the weekend, were the Harris WCM machines of Chris Burns and new team-mate David de Gea, who were found to have engine designs that - according to the FIM - infringed the prototype technical regulations, apparently meaning they weren't 'unique' enough (see separate story).

Why this wasn't stated three weeks ago at Suzuka is unknown - it seems unlikely that the bike had changed significantly since then, particularly as the decision seems to be based on a lack of changes to the original R1 powerplant from which the Harris WCM engine dimensions were based.

The team is said to have appealed against the decision but, unusually, is not being allowed to race under appeal this weekend.

Anyway, into this afternoon's session and Biaggi was setting the initial pace, before Gibernau shot to the top at the end of the first ten minutes - the Spaniard courageously rising to the challenge of carrying the Gresini team's hopes, and riding under the cloud of Daijiro Kato's recent death.

But within a minute Rossi was back on top, and that proved to be the start of an intense few laps which ended with the reigning world champion 0.346secs clear of Gibernau, followed by Capirossi, Biaggi, Edwards, Roberts, Haga, Barros and McWilliams, with 15mins gone.

By the halfway mark Rossi had gone even faster to hold a massive 1.01secs advantage over Gibernau, with Biaggi, Capirossi, Ukawa, Barros, Edwards and Haga completing the provisional top two rows - and covered by just 0.5secs.

Just behind the top 8 was Makoto Tamada, again impressing on the Bridgestone/Pramac RCV combination in just his third ever MotoGP qualifying session - and his first time racing outside of Japan - while McWilliams was still holding off Roberts, Jacque and Checa for the final top ten spot.

20mins to go and World Superbike Champion Colin Edwards threw his Aprilia up the order into... second! Admittedly the Texan was still 0.7secs away from Rossi, but less than a year ago an Aprilia ahead of everyone but Rossi's Repsol Honda would have seemed ridiculous, but when Haga put the sister RS Cube into fourth a little over three minutes later, the MotoGP grid sat up and took notice.

Into the last ten minutes and Gibernau retook second from Edwards, but the Aprilias were still third and fourth, but Capirossi was now challenging and soon put his Ducati into third.

Also making a much needed move was Carlos Checa, who progressed up to sixth on his state of the art M1 to uphold Yamaha honour, but that was nothing compared with the efforts of Troy Bayliss - who was fastest heading into the final sector - but had to settle for a still stunning fourth.

With three minutes to go Rossi seemed to underline that the rest of the field were fighting for second as he effortlessly cut 0.25secs off his previous best, but where there's a Loris Capirossi there's a way... somehow, the ever trying Italian put his Desmosedici 0.007secs under Rossi's best of the session with mere seconds to go.

But while Ducati were crossing their fingers, Rossi responded to cut 0.144secs from Capirex's time and take the early advantage ahead of tomorrow's second qualifying session.

Behind the top two was Gibernau, to confirm his admirable efforts, while Bayliss has a provisional front row to his credit at just his second GP. Pons team-mates Ukawa and Biaggi had a comfortable session to build on.

Edwards held on to seventh to embarrass proven MotoGP winners Yamaha, who ultimately had to rely on the injured Alex Barros for a provisional top eight start after Checa faded.

Further back, tenth placed McWilliams was just over 1sec from Rossi, while AMA SBK champ Nicky Hayden continued his form from Suzuka with an overnight 13th.

Top Suzuki was Roberts in 15th, while Kawasaki were again relegated to the back of the grid with Pitt 20th and McCoy 21st.

Full times to follow...

1. Rossi
2. Capirossi
3. Gibernau
4. Bayliss
5. Ukawa
6. Biaggi
7. Edwards
8. Barros