Stoner tops MotoGP grid

Casey Stoner put in a blistering fast lap to grab pole position for the start of the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM race at Mugello, his 27th pole position in the premier class. American Ben Spies and Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) will join the Australian on the front row. With uncertain weather conditions threatening, the MotoGP grid hurried to put down as many laps as possible and the Australian on the Repsol Honda set a new circuit record of 1’48.034 in the first half of the session, to qualify him almost half a second faster than Spies on his Yamaha Factory Racing YZR-M1. The American managed to qualify second on the grid with a time of 1’48.479 at only his second visit to the Tuscan circuit. Spies edged out Simoncelli by just 0.006s, who was unable to counter with a quicker attempt as rain began to fall in earnest with 25 minutes remaining in the hour long qualifying session. Andrea Dovizioso will start his Repsol Honda on Sunday from the head of the second row, after setting a time of 1'48.694 - a 0.394s improvement over his best time set in FP1. The Italian was 0.062s quicker than Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo, who set an earlier lap record in FP3. The Mallorcan’s qualifying time of 1'48.756 was over half a second slower than his earlier record breaking best time. Completing the second row will be Colin Edwards on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 bike, trailing Lorenzo by 0.218s. Edward’s team mate Cal Crutchlow leads row three and is the last of the field within a second of the record breaking lap of Stoner. He is joined by last year’s race winner Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda), who returns to racing after his 3 race absence due to injury, and the first Ducati Team finisher in the bunch ridden by Nicky Hayden. The Kentucky Kid’s team mate Valentino Rossi finished the session in 12th.