Hayden leads Honda's charge

The American rider Nicky Hayden sliced 1.183sec from Max Biaggi's outright lap record yesterday to claim provisional pole position for the British MotoGP here.

The American rider Nicky Hayden sliced 1.183sec from Max Biaggi's outright lap record yesterday to claim provisional pole position for the British MotoGP here.

The 22-year-old lapped in 1min 29.295sec on his Repsol Honda to snatch first place from Valentino Rossi with just over one minute remaining in the one-hour session. Hayden beat the Italian by 0.289sec on the 2.5-mile circuit. "I've had a few set-up problems," Rossi said. "I need to try some other tyres tomorrow, and I'm confident that we can go better."

A resurfaced track and the phenomenal technical progress in MotoGP contributed to Hayden's destruction of Biaggi's year-old record.

Loris Capirossi made it three different makes of motorcycle on the provisional front row with third place on his Ducati Desmosedici. After a difficult start to the season the Italian factory has fitted a softer "twin pulse" V4 engine to its machine, and the move is paying off in better drive from the corners.

"The bike is easier to manage, so the riders are finding it easier to maintain a good rhythm," the team director, Livio Suppo, said. "We've lost a little horsepower at the top end, but they probably don't even feel this."

The battle between Honda and Yamaha for the championship ended evenly in the weekend's preliminary skirmish. Rossi's team-mate, the 31-year-old Spaniard Carlos Checa, headed the second row in fourth place on Yamaha's YZR-M1. But he was hounded by three Honda competitors, Sete Gibernau, Colin Edwards and Biaggi.

With four Hondas outnumbering two Yamahas in the top seven placings, it looks ominously as though the former may be recovering from their early-season handling problems.

Britain's Neil Hodgson, who is having to learn most of the MotoGP tracks this year, almost shattered Biaggi's old record with a lap of 1:30.478 on a circuit that he knows from his days as a Superbike rider.

"I can feel what the bike is doing here, so every change that I make to the set-up really works," he said. "I didn't realise how hard it has been for me this year, having to get to grips with a new bike on unfamiliar circuits." But such is the pace in MotoGP that his fighting performance at Donington on a year-old Ducati brought him only 14th place.

British Grand Prix (Donington Park) First MotoGP qualifying session (for tomorrow's race): 1 N Hayden (US) Honda 1min 29.295sec; 2 V Rossi (It) Yamaha 1:29.584; 3 L Capirossi (It) Ducati 1:29.681; 4 C Checa (Sp) Yamaha 1:29.833; 5 S Gibernau (Sp) Honda 1:29.910; 6 C Edwards (US) Honda 1:29.919; 7 M Biaggi (It) Honda 1:29.961; 8 M Melandri (It) Yamaha 1:30.162; 9 T Bayliss (Aus) Ducati 1:30.258; 10 A Barros (Br) Honda 1:30.269; 11 R Xaus (Sp) Ducati 1:30.305; 12 K Roberts (US) Suzuki 1:30.366; 13 J Hopkins (US) Suzuki 1:30.442; 14 N Hodgson (GB) Ducati 1:30.478; 15 N Abe (Japan) Yamaha 1:30.559; 16 M Tamada (Japan) Honda 1:31.141; 17 S Nakano (Japan) Kawasaki 1:31.164; 18 J McWilliams (GB) Aprilia 1:31.390; 19 A Hofmann (Ger) Kawasaki 1:31.575; 20 S Byrne (GB) Aprilia 1:31.840; 21 M Fabrizio (It) Harris WCM 1:31.987; 22 N Aoki (Japan) Proton KR 1:32.433; 23 K Roberts (US) Proton KR 1:32.505; 24 C Burns (GB) Harris WCB 1:33.665.