Mixed day for Nobby Ueda in 125cc class.

The final round of this 2001 MotoGP World Championship is here in Brazil at the Nelson Piquet circuit on the outskirts of the colourful city of Rio de Janeiro. As to be expected the weather was nice and hot for the first free practice being held unusually on Thursday due to the race being held on Saturday.

With air temperature at 26oC, the session was demanding from the off and Nobby Ueda set the pace, posting a reasonable lap early on while staying out on the circuit for 9 laps. A brief stop in the pits for a carburettor change and then back out improving his lap time and then again visiting the pit for a change of rear tyre for the remaining 10 minutes where he again improved his time finishing the session in 9th place overall.

There were no major set-up problems but there were discussions about front suspension changes for the first qualifying in the afternoon. These proved to be not as good as the team had expected causing the first qualifying to be a very mixed session.

The lap times were improved by 4/10ths of a second but this was not enough to provide a better position than 12th on the provisional grid for Saturday's race. Nobby was content with the session but knows the team need to revert to the morning's settings and then concentrate on improving the lap time for the second qualifying session.

Two rear tyres were tested and it was found that one performed slightly better, but it will need to be tested further tomorrow to test it's endurance. Overall, the team were happy with the day and can now work to fine tune the settings for Friday's final qualifying session and try to secure a start position on the first two rows.

" The session was OK," stated Nobby. "The bike was slightly slower this afternoon and so the lap time was harder. The rear tyre was sliding a little on right corners so we tried another tyre and this was better, but we need to test further."