The battle for the 500 GP Championship recommences this weekend following a five-week lull in hostilities. Sunday's Czech Grand Prix is the tenth of this year's 16-round 500 World Championship and a crucial race for current series leader Valentino Rossi (Nastro Azzurro Honda NSR500).

The Italian youngster, who won five of the year's first nine races, needs a good result at Brno to head off the threat from title-rival Max Biaggi (Yamaha). The two compatriots are now separated by just ten points, and with 175 points still to play for, every one of the last seven races will be vital to the final result.

Since the last GP, which took place in Germany on July 22, Rossi has split his time between work and play. At the start of August he travelled to Japan for his second attempt at the prestigious Suzuka Eight Hour race, riding a Cabin Honda VTR1000SPW with Honda's World Superbike Champion Colin Edwards. The pair won a famous victory, Honda's fifth in succession, leading home fellow VTR1000SPW riders Alex Barros and Tadayuki Okada. After that supreme effort, Rossi needed a relaxing break to build strength for the final push towards the climax of the 500 GP season. The former 125 and 250 king took time out in Ibiza and comes to Brno rested and ready for action.

"Suzuka was great, I really wanted to win because the event is so important to Honda," says Rossi, who also won April's Japanese 500 GP at the track. "But after the race I was very, very tired. The GP season is very long and it's been great to be able to get away for a bit of a holiday before coming back for the final races. The German GP was very difficult for us, we tried hard but we didn't have such good machine settings and I think that Brno will be better. I got second there last year and I will be aiming to do better than that this time around."

Rossi's chief engineer Jerry Burgess is also confident that his man will be back up front this weekend. "There's no reason why Valentino shouldn't be able to run a good race at Brno," says Burgess. "He struggled there last year because conditions were pretty hot and that hurt our bike's power, but part of the aim of the new bike was to run cooler. It's a great track and pretty unusual because it's so wide. This is something the riders really have to think about - if a rider uses all the track, he'll be slow, if he takes the short route, he'll be quick. Honda have won a lot of races there but it's been a good Yamaha track too, (Wayne) Rainey spanked us a few times there."

Rossi hasn't tested at Brno this year, unlike Biaggi's Yamaha team and Sito Pons' West Honda Pons outfit, which count the Czech track as a designated test venue. Pons riders Alex Barros (West Honda Pons NSR500) and Loris Capirossi (West Honda Pons NSR500) both lapped inside the track record (at 2m 01.8s and 2m 02.2s respectively) when they visited Brno before the German GP. Barros, the only man to have won a 500 GP this year apart from Rossi and Biaggi, didn't have a good time at last year's Czech GP, crashing out after qualifying 11th. The event started a poor run of results for the Brazilian veteran but he denies suggestions that he'd been unable to get back into the groove after the midseason break. "Last year we didn't have a good set-up for Brno or Estoril, which hurt us at those tracks, and then I got a bad start at Valencia, though I was fast after that," says Barros, currently fourth overall just behind his team-mate. "So we've been testing at Brno and Estoril this year and the bike's now working well at both tracks."

Team owner Pons adds: "Last year Brno wasn't a good track for us. Alex didn't feel so good there and Loris broke a hand. We didn't know why we had problems so we wanted to clarify things and that's why we went testing there last month. Alex found a rhythm much faster than last year and we got a clear view on tyres and suspension settings, though Loris couldn't ride at his maximum after getting injured at Donington. I think both our guys should be up front this year."

Former World Champion Alex Crivillé (Repsol YPF Honda NSR500) will be looking to Brno as an opportunity to regain confidence after a difficult run of results. The Spaniard missed the German GP after two high-speed get-offs in qualifying. "We didn't go testing during the break because we wanted to leave Alex alone to rest," says his chief engineer Gilles Bigot. "He had a boating holiday and hopefully he'll come back relaxed because he's been too tense on the bike, and he's been trying harder and harder, which makes racing more risky. We struggled in Germany because you're on the edge of the tyre all the time there, and because this year's bike is stiffer than last year's you can get more chatter. I think Brno should be better for the bike."

Team-mate Tohru Ukawa (Repsol YPF Honda NSR500) will also hoping for better luck this weekend. A faller in Germany and victim of a stop-and-go penalty at the previous race in Britain, Ukawa badly needs to get back in the points. "I feel good about Brno," says Ukawa, who finished fourth at the Suzuka Eight Hours. "I've had a rest and now our commitment to the Eight Hours is over I feel focused for the second part of my debut 500 season."

Next race after Brno is the Portuguese GP at Estoril on September 9. The final Continental GP of 2001 takes place at Valencia, Spain, on September 23, before the paddock heads around the globe for the final four races in Japan (for the Pacific GP), Australia, Malaysia and Brazil.