250cc – Estoril QP1 – Hiroshi Aoyama on provisional pole

Hiroshi Aoyama took the provisional pole for the 250 class Portuguese GP, the penultimate round of the 2006 world championship. The KTM rider achieved it with a time of 1'42"282 ahead of the Aprilia of world championship leader Jorge Lorenzo. The latter is 75 thousandths of a second behind and precedes his teammate Hector Barbera, who set the best time in FP1.

Followed by the Aprilias of Alex De Angelis from San Marino, the Czech Jacob Smrz and Roberto Locatelli from Bergamo. Immediately behind is Andrea Dovizioso who follows Lorenzo in the world standings by 27 points. The man from Forlì must win to keep his world championship hopes intact but it certainly won't be an easy task.

Good performance by Marco Simoncelli, the Gilera rider is eighth ahead of the Japanese Takahashi (Honda), the Spanish Espargarò (Aprilia) and the Japanese S.Aoyama (Honda). Seventeenth time instead for Hiroshi Aoyama's KTM.