Proton Team KR riders Nobu Aoki and Jeremy McWilliams each slashed more than a full second off their first-day lap times in today's final timed qualifying session for Sunday's Japanese GP - and Aoki moved up the grid, in an impressive performance in spite of a heavy crash yesterday.

Aoki was left stiff and sore, after a night's sleep he returned stronger for his home GP, and shrugged off the injury to improve his Friday time by a full 1.8 seconds.

McWilliams also improved, but had a difficult afternoon trying to find a tyre that would suit conditions much cooler than yesterday.

Tomorrow's Japanese GP is the opening round of the new MotoGP world championship, that pits 990cc four-strokes against the established 500cc two-strokes like the Proton KR3. Final honours went to Valentino Rossi's four-stroke Honda, narrowly ahead of fellow-Italian Loris Capirossi's two-stroke. The first 12 riders were within one second of pole time after a hectic session.

NOBUATSU AOKI - "I believe it will probably rain tomorrow, so today instead of looking for a dry-weather race tyre I put on soft tyres and just went for lap times to improve my grid position. It all worked pretty well. The difficulty was a headwind on the straight, which spoiled my speed. Luckily I was able to get behind Itoh's five-cylinder Honda, and get a good tow for my best lap time. I'm feeling a lot better today than yesterday, and should be even better tomorrow."

JEREMY McWILLIAMS - "A bad afternoon. I was looking for a tyre, and I had a lot of problems with chatter. This is a problem for the new Bridgestones when the temperature drops. In the morning I could do regular 2:07 times with a race tyre, but in the afternoon I was even struggling on a soft qualifying tyre. I hope conditions are better for the race."

KENNY ROBERTS - Team Owner - "Our target was to improve on last year, and we did that. But the cold weather hurt us. We need it warmer to get a good corner speed, which is our strong point. We had everything else working well - but then it got cold. I'll be happy if it does rain tomorrow. We need it hot, or wet - nothing in between."

1. Rossi - 2m04.226
2. Capirossi - 2m04.409
3. Itoh - 2m04.435
4. Checa - 2m04.450
5. Biaggi - 2m04.456
6. Katoh - 2m04.491
7. Ryo - 2m04.746
8. Jacque - 2m04.953
9. Nakano - 2m05.098
10. Roberts - 2m05.122
11. Ukawa - 2m05.141
12. Abe - 2m05.145
13. Barros - 2m05.387
14. Gibernau - 2m05.977
15. Aoki - 2m06.094
16. Harada - 2m06.112
17. McCoy - 2m06.193
18. Hopkins - 2m06.302
19. Laconi - 2m06.379
20. Goorbergh - 2m06.731 (Friday Time, only rider not to go quicker today)
21. McWilliams - 2m07.130
22. Riba - Injured yesterday

Saturday Reports - Qualifying 2 - Marlboro Yamaha Report - Red Bull Report - Proton Team KR Report - Suzuki Report - Honda Report

Friday Reports - Qualifying 1 - Marlboro Yamaha - Red Bull Yamaha - Proton Team KR - Telefonica Movistar Suzuki