Presently Biaggi occupies third place in the championship and is the leading challenger to the hegemony of the dominant Honda V5 machines. As he became the first rider to break the two-minute lap barrier in Brno this afternoon, the Roman was clearly pleased with his work on the modified M1, "We have been working with two different tyre compounds and have tried a different front fork with a bigger diameter. This afternoon I switched to my second bike and it seemed a lot better so I stuck with it throughout the session. After the summer break this is the best way to come back and I am very happy, but it is only Saturday."

Biaggi broke his own pole position record by almost exactly 0.7 seconds, but wasn't the only rider under two minutes. Daijiro Kato showed he will need little time to become competitive with the RC211V Honda he rides here for the first time. The reigning 250cc World Champion set the second quickest time after having been in front from only the third lap of the session, and as if he had been riding all season on the bike slid his new charge around the technical Brno track.

The Japanese rider will start from just in front of his Honda colleague Rossi, who was unable to return to the track for a final flying lap having run out of time to get back onto the track and around to the finish line before the chequered flag was raised. Rossi possibly faces his toughest challenge this weekend as both Biaggi and Kato are in good shape, and will be trying their utmost to prevent him from taking his ninth victory of the season in what is the tenth race.

Demonstrating that his worst injury problems are possibly behind him, Garry McCoy took the final front row position on the Yamaha YZR500 setting up what promises to be a fantastic battle tomorrow. The second row was made up by a returning Loris Capirossi, who has not raced since the crash that broke his wrist in Holland. The Italian was in fifth while Carlos Checa, John Hopkins and Tohru Ukawa completed the line-up. Behind them, Gibernau, Barros, Nakano and McWilliams will complete row three.

With a twenty-five point gap between himself and championship leader Marco Melandri, Fonsi Nieto will have his sights set on maximum points when he starts the 250 race from pole tomorrow. The Spaniard has watched his rival win the last five races and aims to end that streak when the two line-up alongside each other on the front row. Sebastian Porto took his first career podium in Germany, and third place on the grid will help him towards doubling his podium tally despite not having improved on Friday's time today, while Roberto Locatelli completed the first four on his Aprilia.

Australia's Casey Stoner is struggling somewhat at Brno, only managing 19th place on the grid for tomorrow's 250 race.  "This morning in free practice we made a lot of changes that worked really well. I finished this morning in seventh position and the bike was feeling very good. This afternoon in qualifying the bike would not rev and we only found that it had a broken pipe with seven minutes left. We replaced it and I went out but the bike seized at the beginning of my first fast lap and I crashed at the end of the main straight at very high speed. This was very frightening. Tomorrow I will have to start from the 19th position so I am sure it will be a very difficult race."

Alex de Angelis took his first career pole position in the 125 class, having led throughout the second half of the session. The San Marino rider picked up his first podium at the last round in Germany, finishing second to Vincent, and will now be hoping he can go one better as he sets off the race from the front of the grid tomorrow. Another Aprilia rider Simone Sanna continued to rekindle his disappointing season by sealing second, while Dani Pedrosa and De Angelis' compatriot Manuel Poggiali finished off the front row in that respective order.

1. Biaggi 1m59.646
2. Kato 1m59.740
3. Rossi 1m59.997
4. McCoy 2m00.129
5. Capirossi 2m00.146
6. Checa 2m00.186
7. Hopkins 2m00.241
8. Ukawa 2m00.485
9. Gibernau 2m00.567
10. Barros 2m00.619
11. Nakano 2m00.659
12. McWilliams 2m00.674
13. Goorbergh 2m00.835
14. Aoki 2m00.985
15. Jacque 2m01.095
16. Abe 2m01.239
17. Harada 2m01.435
18. Laconi 2m01.494
19. Roberts 2m01.582
20. Ryo 2m02.085
21. Guintoli 2m03.054
22. Riba 2m04.329