Shinya Nakano
On Saturday, Dani Pedrosa took pole position - his fourth and final of the season - with a time of 1:21.815. Lining alongside him in second is Kenny Roberts Jr., who took a surprise front row place by only being +0.092 seconds off the pace of Pedrosa - and teammate Nicky Hayden in third place. The second row of the grid consists out of Shinya Nakano on the Kawasaki in fourth, Loris Capirossi in fifth and Marco Melandri in sixth position. Rossi meanwhile only managed to qualify a lowly tenth and thus was down on the fourth row of the grid. Another rookie - Casey Stoner - did not participate in the race due to a concussion he sustained after a crash earlier that day during the warm-up practice.