Casey Stoner takes pole position at Phillip Island

from TWOWHEELSBLOG

Betting against Casey Stoner taking today’s pole position at Phillip Island would have been suicidal, and Stoner’s countrymen knew it as they showed up in record numbers at the track to see their champion take his fifth pole position of the season (his last was at Sachsenring) in his penultimate qualifying session before he permanently hangs up his lid.

The Australian was able to chip away on his morning’s record time to post another blistering lap in 1.29.623, but he also suffered a crash at turn 4 during mid session that sent a shiver down the backs of everyone thinking of his recovering ankle injury, but he picked up his spare bike to further to set his best time.

Joining Stoner on the front row will be Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. Both riders were able to contain their gap to the suberb Stoner to less than a second, with Lorenzo putting his Yamaha M1 within half a second from the Repsol Honda rider. It was the first time this weekend that someone was able to cut that much into Stoner’s lap times, but a drizzle in the final minutes stopped all action.

Cal Crutchlow was fourth with Stefan Bradl splitting him from his team mate Andrea Dovizioso but all three were abundantly above a second. Valentino Rossi took eighth, but he was barely 0.006s ahead of a spectacular Randy de Puniet who put the the wheels of his ART machine - and the best qualifying for a CRT rider - ahead of Nicky Hayden who closed out the top ten and he was 2.058s from Stoner.

Kris McLaren replacing injured Yonny Hernandez in Avintia Blusens suffered a big highside at the MG corner and missed the 107% qualifying cut by 0.428s, but he’ll get a chance to race if he can cut the gap during tomorrow morning’s warm-up session.

MotoGP Phillip Island Qualifying results:

01- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 1’29.623
02- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.517
03- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.952
04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.140
05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 1.175
06- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.577
07- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.867
08- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.038
09- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 2.044
10- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.058