The West Honda Pons rider, in his 207th GP, put his new bike fifth on the grid at Motegi, never having tested with it previously. The story of qualifying was Dajirio Kato on another RCV, with the home rider taking this machine to his first pole position since moving up from the 250s. Kato was followed by two Yamaha M1s, with Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa split by the impressive 500 Honda of Loris Capirossi. On row two, Barros headed up the two works RCVs of Rossi and Tohru Ukawa, with the Suzuki of Kenny Roberts tenth.

The two wildcard riders were to be found on the fifth row, with Akira Yanagawa placing the new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR eighteenth, and Waturu Yoshikawa’s third M1 Yamaha one slot behind that. Yanagawa’s presence represented the first Kawasaki GP entry for twenty years.

The start, with twelfth qualifier Régis Laconi and his Aprilia coming from the pitlane, saw Capirossi take his NSR500 into an immediate lead. Initially, he was followed by countryman Biaggi, but ‘the Roman Emperor’ somehow fell back to sixth in the first few corners. This left Kato and Rossi as Capirossi’s pursuers, and the new champion was into second place pretty smartish. Behind these three came Barros, Roberts, Biaggi, Ukawa, Sete Gibernau on the second Suzuki and Norick Abe, up from fourteenth and now leading the 500 Yamaha challenge.

Before the first lap was over, Rossi had taken over at the front and, indeed, Capirossi’s machine was soon bringing up the rear in a four-way Honda group, with Barros now second from Kato. Biaggi was leading Ukawa for fifth, as the pair relegated Roberts, and Checa was coming through from another poor start to run ninth, behind Gibernau. Abe was followed by Olivier Jacque, the two Protons of Nobuatsu Aoki and Jeremy McWilliams, and then John Hopkins, Tetsuya Harada, and Yanagawa.

The leading RCV trio seemed well matched in the early stages, not to mention rapid, with Kato attacking Barros, and the Brazilian attacking Rossi, and behind them a small gap opened up to Capirossi. Similarly, the Italian had a small margin over his pursuers, and was obviously out to prove something compared to the four-strokers, given that team-mate Barros had been given the new bike and he remained on the out-dated NSR.

Kato backed up his qualifying form by passing Barros around the outside, and finally claiming second place after an immediate fight back from his rival. This allowed Capirossi to close up on the group, and it wasn’t too long before Barros took back his second place. He wasn’t done at that, either, as he was able to pass ‘the Doctor’ and take over in the lead. Next up were Biaggi and Ukawa, together on the road, and then Roberts and Checa, who took over eighth as Gibernau became an early retirement.

When Rossi ran wide in one turn, he was demoted to third by Kato and, at this point, the fifth and sixth men looked to be closing on the lead group. Further back, Yanagawa was sliding his Kawasaki, aiding Laconi in his fight back, but the Japanese was then caught out by a high side crash which looked to have injured him. He had been close to the points when it happened, but this incident casts doubt on his fitness for the next race in a week’s time.

Barros began to pull out a gap over the men following, but soon it was evident that Kato was in trouble. With his bike slowing drastically, the pole man coasted round to the pits to pull out altogether. This put Rossi back to second, from Capirossi, Biaggi, Ukawa, Roberts and Checa while the following order went Abe, Jacque, McWilliams, Aoki, Hopkins, Harada, Laconi, Yoshikawa, van den Goorbergh, McCoy and Nakano.

Checa started to make up ground now, after liberating sixth from Roberts, and the Proton pair were swapping places again down the field. Barros and Rossi began to leave Capirossi again, although he did his best to hang onto them. Rossi looked threatening as the race developed, but Barros responded to the Italian, who seemed to be struggling with his bike in one or two corners.

The battle for fourth was resolved in Ukawa’s favour as he passed Biaggi and pulled away. Something was not right for the Italian, who was soon pulling off the course with a smoking Yamaha. By now the field was pretty spread out, save for a close battle over seventh, between the Yamaha 500s of Abe and Jacque, and a close group headed by eleventh placed Hopkins.

Capirossi was well clear of Ukawa as the race wore on, but finally began to lose touch with the two RCVs up front. Rossi remained in Barros’ shadow, and the Brazilian cannily let him past with five laps to go, to find he was comfortably able to sit behind and follow closely. Valentino was not so happy with his own bike, and continued to suffer a few difficult moments.

With maybe three-and-a-half laps remaining, Rossi again ran wide into a right-hand turn, missed the apex, and was passed by Barros. The champion’s Honda was not cornering precisely, and the back end seemed to want to break away. Nevertheless, Rossi continued to attack, with Capirossi still in sight behind, but Alex had him covered. On the final two laps, the Brazilian set his best laps, finishing off with a new circuit record, and Rossi just couldn’t respond. It represented Barros’ fifth GP victory, and he had proved that he was still a man to be reckoned with.

Positions behind were largely unchanged at the finish. Capirossi equalled his best result of the year, and Ukawa came next, repassing Biaggi in the points standings. Checa was fifth, from Roberts, Jacque, Abe, Aoki, McWilliams, Laconi and Yoshikawa.

The 250 race boiled down to a tussle between Marco Melandri and the Spanish Telefónica pairing of Fonsi Nieto and Toni Elías, all three on Aprilias. On this occasion, the Italian had to settle for second, with a strong attack from Elías in the last two laps paying off for his first win in the class. Nieto was fourth at the flag, shown the way home by Honda’s test rider, the 18-year-old Yuki Takahashi, who was given a wildcard entry and showed strong potential. The result opened Melandri’s points margin over Nieto up to a very useful 52.

In the 125 event, Arnaud Vincent led away from Dani Pedrosa, but the Frenchman’s smoky Aprilia dropped away mid race, and he trailed home only 15th. Pedrosa then fought off the pairing of Manuel Poggiali and Steve Jenkner, after Andrea Dovisioso suffered a huge high side crash, taking his second victory of the season, and moving closer to Vincent and Poggiali in the points. Poggiali’s second took him to within eight of Vincent.

The next races are at Sepang in Malaysia, in just a week’s time.

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