Alex Barros maintained his form from Motegi, securing his fourth career pole position, and he was joined on row one by Biaggi, Daijiro Kato and Loris Capirossi on the Pons Honda 500. Row two saw Carlos Checa, Tohru Ukawa, Jeremy McWilliams and Rossi, whilst a further five two-strokes, amongst others, managed to get ahead of the new M1 Yamahas of Shinya Nakano and Olivier Jacque.

The race start saw Barros, Biaggi and Kato maintain their positions at the front, with Ukawa and Rossi getting ahead of Checa and Capirossi. Behind these seven, Nakano had surged from 16th up to eighth, ahead of Garry McCoy, who begun going backwards on lap one, Kenny Roberts, Jacque, Norick Abe, Sete Gibernau, Nobuatsu Aoki and Akira Ryo. McWilliams had a disappointing start, dropping eleven places to 18th, behind José Luís Cardoso and Jürgen van den Goorbergh. The tail of the field comprised Régis Laconi, Tetsuya Harada, John Hopkins and Andrew Pitt on the Kawasaki.

In the early stages, it seemed that Barros and Biaggi were beginning to pull away from their pursuers, with the gap behind sixth-placed Checa also growing quite quickly. Rossi was intent on moving forward, passing Repsol Honda team-mate Ukawa only to see the Japanese come back past out of the final corner. ‘The Doctor’ had another go into turn one, but this time ran wide and let both Ukawa and Checa gain the advantage on him.

The Honda RCV boys showed their strength as the race settled down, with Barros and Ukawa both posting fastest laps. Rossi was not content with sixth, and he struggled his way past Checa, who didn’t give up easily. As the lead group began to space out slightly, it was obvious that no-one behind sixth was not going to be able to live with the leaders. Nevertheless, Nakano and Roberts, now ahead of Capirossi, were comfortably pulling clear of their pursuers in the battle for seventh.

Whilst NSR man Capirossi was pushed back, McWilliams was making good on his start and coming through to run twelfth, just behind Ryo and Aoki. Further forward, Kato looked to be in difficulty, his bike trying to slide under braking for a slow hairpin. An opportunistic Ukawa went past his countryman as a result, but the pair were close to contact and Daijiro had to sit up to keep out of trouble. With Nakano maintaining a strong seventh place, his team-mate Jacque was the first retirement after an off-track incident.

At this stage, Barros and Biaggi were still tied together out front, Rossi was passing Ukawa into the hairpin at the back end of the circuit, for second, and the following riders were all looking increasingly lonely, with only Nakano under close attention from Roberts. Kato and Checa were still fifth and sixth, ahead of this pair, and Capirossi was in P9. The next group of riders were closely bunched, Ryo leading Abe, McWilliams, Aoki and Goorbergh. Abe soon took tenth from his countryman, and the gap went back from this ten-wheeler to Gibernau, who had come through on Laconi and McCoy, whilst Harada was dropping right back.

Biaggi now began to signal his intent with a fastest lap, and Rossi was beginning to slide his Honda around. Barros seemed to respond to the threat from the Roman, whilst Kato’s Honda (fifth) and Checa’s Yamaha (sixth) were now each being dropped by the man in front. Indeed, the Spaniard looked more and more likely to fall prey to the closing group of Nakano, Roberts and Capirossi. Harada’s race was run at this stage.

The action at the front of the race began to hot up. Biaggi was really in attack mode on Barros, and he took the lead at turn one, apparently thanks to a missed gear by the Brazilian. This moment allowed Rossi and Ukawa to close back in on the lead pair, and the Italian made a move for second at the final hairpin turn. Unfortunately for the late-braking Barros, Rossi seemed to go in a little too hot, and both bikes were forced wide in a near collision. All of which let Ukawa get in front of both his Honda rivals, and possibly cost Barros a chance to come back at Biaggi.

The lead four remained quite closely grouped, now in the order Biaggi, Ukawa, Rossi and Barros, but gaps were starting to grow behind the first and third men. Rossi seemed very keen to dispense with Ukawa and go after Biaggi, but Valentino’s attempts to pass saw him go wide at one point, then make it through, but a further mistake gave Tohru enough opportunity to move ahead once again, where he was put under more sustained pressure. With all this going on, Biaggi was stretching his lead over the RCV trio, as Barros came back into play in fourth position.

Rossi and Ukawa managed a bit more place switching, which finally went the champion’s way, and when Ukawa ran wide Barros pounced for third. The battling Hondas were of no concern to Biaggi, who was, if anything, helped by their sparring, and he duly scored his second win of the season. The next four bikes home were RC211Vs, although Kato was not in touch with the entertaining Rossi, Barros and Ukawa group. Sixth went to Nakano, after a strong début race on the M1 Yamaha, and he was followed home by Checa, Roberts on the first Suzuki, and then Capirossi and Abe on the leading two-stroke 500s. The result gives Biaggi a seven point advantage over Ukawa, for second overall, whilst Barros’ lead over Checa, Abe and the rest continues to grow.

The 250 race favoured Fonsi Nieto’s chase of points leader Marco Melandri, as the Italian was forced to cruise out of the race on lap one. Nieto duly led fellow Spaniard, and team-mate, Toni Elías home for an almost unopposed one-two, with Roberto Rolfo their only real challenger. The battle for fourth was won by an attacking Sebastian Porto, over Franco Battaini and Randy de Puniet, giving the home Petronas Yamaha team a good result. Naoki Matsudo made it two Yamahas in the top seven.

In the 125s, some dramatic developments on the final lap came to nought, as the result was backdated by one tour because of the chequered flag being shown too early. A close four way battle between Arnaud Vincent, Lucio Cecchinello, Daniel Pedrosa and Manuel Poggiali saw them classified in that order, although Pedrosa had actually passed Cecchinello, and Poggiali was lucky to get away with a needless fall on the final corner, that would otherwise have left him back in ninth. Fifth went to Pablo Nieto and sixth to Steve Jenkner.

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