Carlos Checa staged a remarkable comeback from a massive tumble during this morning's practice session, battling for pole position this afternoon and ending the session a close fifth fastest. The Marlboro Yamaha Team man was highsided from his M1 as he powered out of Estoril's high-speed final corner, landing heavily on his back, but insists that he suffered no real ill effects from the impact - a testament to the quality of modern-day protective riding gear.

"Unfortunately I was wearing a brand-new set of leathers, but you could say I gave them a good test, along with a new Alpinestars back protector I'm wearing here," grinned the resilient Spaniard who was soon back on board, setting second-best time in session. "I was a little stiff before the start of the afternoon session, but otherwise no real pain. This track isn't easy because there are some very, very slow corners and we have so much horsepower, so we're focusing on getting that power to the asphalt as smoothly as possible. This afternoon I mostly used the newer chassis, because I think this is the direction we want to take."

Winner at Brno two weeks back, Max Biaggi dedicated much of today's two sessions to comparing his two different M1 chassis. The Marlboro Yamaha Team rider clocked plenty of laps with both chassis, working towards the ideal suspension set-up for this twisting and very bumpy circuit. He ended the afternoon outing seventh but would've been higher up the order if he'd managed to get in two flying laps during his end-of-session run. "As usual we fitted a new rear Michelin with a few minutes to go but I only had time for one flying lap before the chequered flag came out, instead of the usual two," he said. "During both sessions we tried a lot of different tyres and tried many different suspension settings with both chassis, but we still need to do more work on set-up. I'll decide sometime tomorrow which chassis I want to use for the race, then we can focus all our attentions on just one chassis."

Alex Barros struck a blow for the 500 two-strokes at Estoril today, putting his Honda NSR500 on provisional pole, just 0.007 seconds ahead of Honda four-stroke rider Daijiro Kato. "Today was good but the four-strokes will get faster tomorrow, so things will get more difficult for us," said Barros. World Championship leader Valentino Rossi ended the session third fastest after his last-gasp run for pole ended when he ran off the track at turn one.

------   Red Bull Report   ------

Red Bull Yamaha team mates John Hopkins and Garry McCoy finished the first qualifying session today at Estoril searching for more from their Yamaha YZR 500s. Hopkins finished 15th fastest in today's first practice session ahead of his Australian team mate McCoy in 17th place.

McCoy's record at this track is nothing short of impressive. He was the winner here in 2000 after starting on pole and in 2001, the Australian finished third behind Rossi and Capirossi. Again during the IRTA test in February 2002, the Slide King was impressive again, setting an attention grabbing time of 1m40.16 before a nasty crash in which he fractured his left leg. McCoy's crew will spend tonight solving technical problems, which resulted in McCoy not being able to extract 100% from his bike in the last lap of this afternoon's windy session.

For the young American, John "Hopper" Hopkins, this is his first race at the dusty, and bumpy 4.182km track. He is looking forward to moving up the grid tomorrow after setting his fastest time today on the last of his 25 laps. Hopkins, who had never competed in a Moto GP until round 1 of the 2002 Season in Suzuka Japan, continues to improve shaving 0.76 seconds off his test time set at the IRTA test in February this year.

John Hopkins ­ 15th ­ 1m41.474 - "Overall the session was okay but we've got a some more work to do on our set-up tonight. We'll try a few different qualifiers tomorrow to try to get a tyre, which handles the bumps a bit better. 'a dusty surface out there and the grips generally not that good. The wind really picked up this afternoon especially toward the end of the session, but I guess everyone has to deal with that.

"In the practice session this morning, I got the bike a bit to hot going into one of the bottom corner and I just ran onto the gravel and out of somewhere to go, so I had no choice but to put the bike down, nothing big at all, no damage to me and only some scuffing to the faring."

Garry McCoy ­ 17th ­ 1m41.568 - "On the final few laps with the qualifying tyre on I followed out Barros and I was set for a hot lap, but my bike had a rear brake problem and it forced me to run wide a couple of times. It felt like the bike was braking without me even touching the brakes at all. When I put my foot on the pedal, it felt like it was hitting the exhaust and there was no choice to do a quick lap. Some of the tyres today weren't really hooking up although there are some good choices available to us and I will try some laps on them tomorrow."

Peter Clifford ­ Director of Racing - "It's terribly disappointing to be so much slower than we were in pre-season testing. Garry had a technical problem which ruined his final run so lets hope things can be a whole lot better tomorrow."