After dominating all three practice sessions at Losail Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) clinched the first pole of the 2011 season, the 27th of his career, for the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar with a fine display in qualifying on Saturday evening.
The MotoGP class was presented with warmer temperatures and less wind compared to the two previous days during the hour-long qualifying session. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) was the only man who could compete with Stoner’s brilliance and took provisional pole off him during the session, but ended up 0.205s behind when Stoner blitzed his lap time with a pole position lap of 1’54.137. Pedrosa will now make his first ever front row start at the Losail International Circuit.
The final place on the front row went to Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) who finished 0.810s behind Stoner. Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) was the surprise of the session with a great lap to finish fourth fastest, just four-hundredths slower than the current MotoGP World Champion. Ben Spies on the second factory Yamaha was fifth, with the top Ducati again Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar Team) who was sixth fastest, 1.086s off the time set by Stoner.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 again produced a good showing with the sole British representative Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech) managing eighth place on the grid for his first MotoGP race, despite the awkward injury to his finger. Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso heads up the second row after timing in seventh fastest, whilst Valentino Rossi will start from the third row on his Ducati debut after setting the ninth fastest lap, precisely 1.5s off Stoner’s time. Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Colin Edwards completed the top ten in QP, which Álvaro Bautista missed after undergoing surgery on a fractured left femur he suffered in a practice session crash on Friday.