Sepang will be tough - McWilliams

Jeremy McWilliams is downcast over his team’s chances of a strong result in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

The Ulsterman was 16th yesterday in first qualifying and admitted afterwards he could see little reason for an improvement after an exhaustive session trying out different set-ups.

McWilliams’ KR Proton team have battled on valiantly despite horrendous problems with their new bike and arrived at Sepang – home of their title sponsors – in optimistic mood after Nobuatsu Aoki scored the machine’s first points in Japan.

However, McWilliams was not a happy man yesterday and said: “We honestly can’t do much better. If I can find another half a second, I will be delighted. I don’t know what we will do.

“We tried every combination we have of all the new parts, and we ended up in a similar position to our usual. My best time came with the old fairing, because that was on the bike with a little more grip, so I tended to favour that.

“The other bike has a stronger engine, so I hope we can marry up that engine with the other set-up. It was hard to tell any difference with the new fairing because of the different chassis set-up.

“The biggest problem was how much everything was spinning up. It is going to be a difficult race.”

Valentino Rossi put the pressure of a title battle to the back of his mind by claiming provisional pole.

The Repsol Honda rider can secure his third straight world title with a top-two finish in tomorrow’s race with only Sete Gibernau mathematically capable of stopping him over the season’s final three races.

But Rossi took a major step towards another championship when his best lap of two minutes 3.516 seconds gave him provisional pole position, almost a quarter of a second faster than second-placed Makoto Tamada.

Rossi said: “We are setting a good rhythm here – it is possible to make very long slides and to have good fun.

“We had to be very careful on the track as there was not much grip – if you try too hard you lose the front and also the rear. We are not yet 100% but we are in a good position on the first day.”

Pramac Honda rider Tamada had been robbed of a third place on home ground in Japan last weekend when he was disqualified for an aggressive move on Gibernau, but he set out to make amends yesterday.

He produced a fine performance to beat Camel Pramac Honda’s Max Biaggi into third place, with Loris Capirossi rounding off the front row for Marlboro Ducati.

Newcastle’s Chris Burns claimed his customary last position, over six seconds off the pace on his Harris WCM.

In the 250cc class, Welsh teenager Chaz Davies continued his impressive run of form to take provisional 15th place on his KF Concept Aprilia.