Suzuki's side-by-side after engine gremlins.

Team Suzuki riders John Hopkins and Kenny Roberts Jr. qualified side by side in the final time sheets for tomorrow's Africa's Grand Prix, placed 16th and 17th in an ultra-close list - Hopkins barely a second off pole time.

But the team-mates will start the race on different rows of the grid . Hopkins on the end of the fourth row, and Roberts leading the fifth.

The second of two days of qualifying at the 4.242km Phakisa Freeway circuit, held in blazing sunshine at the high-altitude South African circuit, saw all but one of the MotoGP riders cut their lap times compared with yesterday, with Hopkins taking almost three quarters of a second off his time, and Roberts some three tenths off his.

This was in spite of a puzzling electronic engine-mapping glitch that emerged during the afternoon - each rider had problems that spoiled their chances of moving higher up the grid - a matter of only a few tenths of a second would have gained them one or two rows.

"I had quite a good session this morning and I wanted to continue in the afternoon, with a few more little things to try. At the beginning it went okay - I was getting behind people and doing laps. Then things started to go wrong," said Hopper.

"We made an adjustment that for the first time all day was wrong. Then we ran straight into an engine mapping problem, that I knew we couldn't cure during the session. So at the end I came in for a new tyre, got behind Troy Bayliss, let him know I wasn't going to go by, then followed him for a pretty hairball fast lap," revaled John. "I tried my best, and matched my morning time even with the problems. For the race I really want to get the best start possible, then stick in there, stay consistent, give 100 percent, and see what happens."

"I'm not really sure what kind of day we had, besides a strange one," added Roberts. "For the race it's a different story, as far as getting a start and trying to stay within my lap times. That really doesn't depend on what we did today. Something happened with my first bike, with the engine mapping system running uncontrollably.

"So I went out on the other bike and that had a problem of the same sort. I don't know how to explain it. The best thing is to ask the engineers who designed it, because something happens and the bike becomes somewhat unrideable. I'd backshift, and it would shut off, then come alive again," said a frustrated Kenny. "For the race, my level is not where it needs to be to make us competitive. I need for the engineers to fix the bike so I can ride it tomorrow. Other than that: congratulations to my ex-team-mate Sete, on pole in his first time here on a non-factory bike. That gives me hope."

The weekend has seen a change in the pit-box line-up. With Roberts's race engineer Bob Toomey temporarily absent for personal reasons, his place has been taken for this race by software engineer and technical coordinator Alfred Willeke.