Locatelli toys with field at Brno.

Polesitter Roberto Locatelli won his third GP125 race of the season in the Czech Republic Grand Prix to close the championship gap on second placed Youichi Ui.

The Japanese rider got the drop on his rival at the green light, but Locatelli was in no mood to hang around, and retook the advantage towards the end of the first lap of 19. The Aprilia rider then appeared to control the race to the end, even though his early lead was subsequently whittled away by the chasing trio of Ui, Emilio Alzamora and Lucio Cecchinello.

The quartet ran as one through the opening laps, with Alzamora and Ui trading second place on successive laps, and Cecchinello having the nerve to snatch third from the Spaniard as early as lap four, but Locatelli was only ever troubled when Ui towed up to the rear of his Aprilia at half-distance.

The Japanese briefly assumed the lead on lap nine, only to have it taken back again by Locatelli next time around and, from then on, the Italian Vasco Rossi Racing rider was able to pull out a two-second gap over his pursuers.

The battle then became one for second place, as Alzamora, free from the threat of Cecchinello after the Italian made a mistake, closed back in on Ui, taking the runner-up position briefly before the Derbi man re-assumed control. The pair finished line astern, respectively 1.5 and 1.7secs adrift of Locatelli.

The Aprilia man, met on the slowing down lap by fans in full devil costume, erased the memory of his last lap accident in 1999, and now trails Ui by just five points in the championship chase.

Behind the leading trio, Cecchinello took a distant fourth - his best finish of the year - after saving a potential accident in remarkable style. Givi-LCR team-mate Nobby Ueda was an equally distant fifth, having lost race rival Simone Sanna to mechanical failure on lap 13.

The Japanese rider was followed at a distance by a squabbling group headed by Steve Jenkner and Arnaud Vincent until the final minutes, when the German crashed out. Vincent subsequently took sixth - from 20th on the grid - with championship challenger Mirko Giansanti making up places at the death to snatch seventh. Gino Borsoi, Jaroslav Hules and Ivan Goi rounded out the top ten.

Joining Jenkner in the gravel were such notables as Randy de Puniet (lap one), Williams de Angelis (five), Angel Nieto Jr (seven) and Pablo Nieto (19). Masao Azuma and Gigi Scalvini joined Sanna in mechanical retirement. Adrian Araujo did not start as a result of the wrist and leg injuries he suffered on Saturday, but same accident victim Manuel Poggiali soldiered on to finish in the points in twelfth. Britain's Leon Haslam was 17th.

Full results will follow at the end of the day's racing....

Leading finishers - GP125.

1. Roberto Locatelli Aprilia
2. Youichi Ui Derbi
3. Emilio Alzamora Honda
4. Lucio Cecchinello Honda
5. Noboru Ueda Honda
6. Arnaud Vincent Aprilia
7. Mirko Giansanti Honda
8. Gino Borsoi Aprilia
9. Jaroslav Hules Italjet
10. Ivan Goi Honda
11. Jakub Smrz Honda
12. Manuel Poggiali Derbi
13. Marco Petrini Aprilia
14. Toni Elias Honda
15. Reinhard Stolz Honda