Racing: Stoner pips Rossi for pole position

56 minutes
First flying lap of the session is a 1min 34.749secs by Lorenzo, which is immediately usurped by Ducati's Nicky Hayden; the 2005 and 2006 pole-sitter in Australia records a 1:34.457 on his first flying lap.

55 minutes
Hayden's team-mate Casey Stoner immediately goes fastest on his first flyer, his lap of 1:32.062 more than two seconds quicker than his team-mate. After all 16 riders have recorded their first timed laps, Stoner leads Honda's Alex De Angelis, world championship leader Valentino Rossi, Lorenzo and Englishman James Toseland, with three Yamahas in the top five.

53 minutes
Stoner lowers the P1 mark to 1:30.734, 1.2secs quicker than De Angelis in second. Rossi then slots into second on his second flying lap. Stoner pits after two flying laps.

50 minutes
Gresini Honda's Toni Elias improves to eighth as Suzuki's Loris Capirossi is up to fifth, 1.455secs adrift of Stoner's benchmark time. Honda's Dani Pedrosa is 16th and last, three seconds off the leading pace.

48 minutes
Rossi pits from second, six-tenths behind Stoner, as Pedrosa improves to seventh. Stoner's compatriot Chris Vermeulen is 2.8secs off the leading pace in last position on the Suzuki.

46 minutes
De Angelis, in third position, crashes at Turn 1 and slides across the grass. He's unhurt after the low-side accident, and runs back to the pits to climb aboard his second bike.

43 minutes
Lorenzo improves to third from 11th, and is five one-hundredths behind team-mate and main championship rival Rossi with a lap of 1:31.425. Only Rossi, Lorenzo and De Angelis are within a second of Stoner's pace-setting time.

38 minutes
Vermeulen improves but only to 15th, pushing Honda's Gabor Talmacsi back to 16th and last. Rossi slices Stoner's advantage back to 0.174secs with a 1:30.908. Yamaha's Colin Edwards improves to seventh after finishing last in Saturday morning practice.

34 minutes
Elias jumps one spot to improve to 12th, while Andrea Dovizioso up to 11th on the factory Honda.

32 minutes
Pedrosa up to third with a 1:31.138 , four-tenths behind Stoner, but crashes at Turn 2 just after completing his lap. After a tumble across the grass, Pedrosa returns to the pits, but his bike is heavily damaged.

30 minutes
Halfway mark of the session, with Stoner leading Rossi by 0.166secs. Pedrosa is third, Lorenzo fourth, and De Angelis rounds out the top five.

24 minutes
Toseland improves to seventh place with a 1:31.914, 1.180secs behind Stoner and just under three-tenths ahead of team-mate Edwards, who improves to eighth from ninth.

19 minutes
Dovizioso improves to 10th but it still over a second slower than team-mate Pedrosa. Stoner betters his session-best time with a 1:30.466, opening the gap to Rossi to four-tenths of a second. Stoner's lap is the fastest so far this weekend, an improvement on his 1:30.626 in Saturday morning practice.

16 minutes
De Angelis improves to fourth as Dovizioso is up to sixth with his best lap of the weekend, a 1:31.794. Lorenzo, in fifth, is the last rider within a second of Stoner.

13 minutes
Lorenzo up to third, two-tenths behind teammate Rossi. Frenchman Randy De Puniet is up to sixth on the LCR Honda.

10 minutes
Edwards improves to sixth place with a 1:31.268, eight-tenths of a second behind Stoner. Lorenzo and De Puniet are the only riders in the pits with 10 minutes remaining.

7 minutes
Rossi improves to within 0.223secs of Stoner's time with a 1:30.689. The Italian then goes to P1 with a 1:30.391 on his next lap, 0.075secs ahead of Stoner. The top two are seven-tenths ahead of Lorenzo in third place.

4 minutes
De Puniet improves to seventh, just under a second slower than Rossi's time.

2 minutes
Stoner jumps back to P1 with a 1:30.386, 0.005secs quicker than Rossi.

1 minute
Pedrosa up to third, demoting Lorenzo to the second row of the grid with a 1:31.070.

Chequered flag
Stoner improves on his final lap to a 1:30.341, taking the 17th pole of his MotoGP career and his second consecutive pole at Phillip Island. It's his second pole of the season and first since the opening round of the season in Qatar.

Rossi fails to improve on his final tour and finishes second, five one-hundredths of a second behind the Australian. Pedrosa takes the third and final spot on the front row, edging compatriot Lorenzo to fourth by 0.001secs. It's the first time this season that Lorenzo hasn't qualified on the front row.

Edwards is in fifth, the eighth time this season he'll start from P5. De Angelis, Hayden, De Puniet, Mika Kallio and Dovizioso round out the top 10.

De Puniet's 32 laps are the most recorded in the session.

MotoGP qualifying results
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro) 1:30.341
2. Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha Team) 1:30.391
3. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) 1:31.070
4. Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha Team) 1:31.071
5. Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) 1:31.096
6. Alex De Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini) 1:31.260
7. Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) 1:31.325
8. Randy De Puniet (LCR Honda) 1:31.380
9. Mika Kallio (Pramac Racing) 1:31.384
10. Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) 1:31.472
11. Toni Elias (San Carlo Honda Gresini) 1:31.640
12. James Toseland (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) 1:31.640
13. Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) 1:31.873
14. Marco Melandri (Hayate Racing Team) 1:32.190
15. Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki) 1:32.338
16. Gabor Talmacsi (Scot Racing Team) 1:32.7

DE ROSA BREAKS THROUGH FOR MAIDEN POLE
Italian Raffaele de Rosa has shocked the 250cc field for the 2009 Iveco Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, recording a last-gasp pole position lap at Phillip Island on Saturday afternoon.

Honda's De Rosa, who hadn't qualified better than sixth all season, set his pole time of 1min 33.389secs after the chequered flag had fallen, edging fellow Italian and reigning 250cc World Champion Marco Simoncelli by 0.225secs. The pole is the first of de Rosa's 250cc career, and just his second in 80 starts across the 125cc and 250cc categories since 2004.

Simoncelli dominated much of the 45-minute session before being pipped at the post. The lanky Gilera rider took control of the session with 24 minutes remaining, and consistently chipped away at his session-best time before de Rosa's stunning final lap. Simoncelli, the winner here last year from pole position, wasn't too despondent after being beaten by his compatriot.

"I'm happy. This afternoon, I get a good rhythm which is very important for the race. I am confident to have a good race tomorrow," Simoncelli said.

Behind Simoncelli was Championship leader and de Rosa's team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama, while Aprilia veteran Alex Debon rounded out the front row in fourth. Debon's effort was particularly impressive after he crashed at Turn 11 on his first flying lap in the session, which commenced in driving rain before drying out after the first 15 minutes.

Friday's 250cc pace-setter Hector Barbera (Aprilia), Frenchman Mike di Meglio (Aprilia), Thai Ratthapark Wilairot (Honda) and Italian Mattia Pasini (Aprilia) will make up the second row on Sunday's grid.

Like Debon, Pasini crashed on his first lap in treacherous conditions at Turn 11, and elected to push his bike back to the pits. He didn't record a flying lap until 10 minutes remained in the session, and was as high as second place until being shuffled down the order in the final two laps.

Aprilia's Alvaro Bautista entered the weekend 26 points behind Aoyama in the title race, but will start Sunday's race from 10th place after a lacklustre qualifying. It was the worst qualifying result of the season for the Spaniard, holder of the 250cc lap record at Phillip Island.

Frenchman Jules Cluzel, who impressed with top-four results in the two free practice sessions, crashed heavily between Turns 7 and 8 inside the last three minutes of the session. The Aprilia rider will start Sunday's race from 12th position.

The 25-lap race will begin at 2.15pm.

The 18-year-old Derbi Racing Team rider continued his current hot streak of form with a last-gasp flying lap of 1:37.770 to take his third career pole in a frantic last three minutes in which the pole position changed hands five times.

Simone Corsi on his Fontana Racing Aprilia - looking for his first pole - seemed to have one hand on it with a 1:38.136, but Bradley Smith's Bancaja Aspar machine then edged him out, only for the young Englishman to low-side out of contention at Turn Four next time round.

Next, Nico Terol looked to have settled things in his favour with a 1:38.049 with just over a minute to go, but then Espargaro fired in his final lap and watched as neither Corsi nor title favourite Julian Simon could better it after the flag fell.

"Very happy for my team and for me," said Espargaro, winner of two of the last three races before the Island.

"It's a very good result, but I hope tomorrow will be even better and we will be working hard to win this race. I like so much this track, and the track is better than it was in this morning's session, a lot warmer."

Simon, who was quickest at the halfway point of the 40-minute session, finished third-fastest but also content with his lot.

"I'm very happy with this front row," said the man who had taken six of the season's previous poles. "I hope tomorrow will be a nice race, a lot of spectacle for all the people."

"Tomorrow I can win the Championship but I will not be thinking about that, just thinking about the race lap by lap. If it's possible it will be perfect, if not, I will wait till Malaysia."

Turn 4 claimed its usual high number of victims, Smith first and foremost, while Australian wild card Dylan Mavin crashed out after just one lap. Like Andy Lawson and Levi Day, he misses out on the race.

In better news for local fans, both 18-year-old Brisbane rider Brad Gross on the only Yamaha in the field and 17-year-old Nicky Diles from Melbourne on his Aprilia made it through to the GP in 30th and 31st places respectively out of the 32 who were within the 107 percent cut-off time.

Espargaro's pole-winning time is just 0.20secs slower than Mike di Meglio's here last year, but over a second outside Mika Kallio's pole time in 2006.

READ WHAT THEY SAID
Casey Stoner (Ducati), 17th MotoGP pole:
On the Ducati's chances in the race:
"We still definitely need to make some improvement before the race tomorrow but in general the bike's been good in all conditions, wet and dry, it's been handling quite well. In the past we've had an advantage at this circuit, we've had very good traction on these long corners, and it's something we've kind of lost this year, but we're working on the bike and it's slowly getting better and better. So hopefully tomorrow we can make another step and definitely get it sort of where we want to be."

On being back in contention:
"It's great to come back: we've had a torrid season, it's been a disaster, and it's nice to come back in these two races and be competitive again. It's a lot more competitive than we've been all season and it's nice to be back up front again. If we can get a few good results towards the end of the season like Portugal then we're going to be happy."

On his current fitness level:
"The more we're getting back to my fitness I realise that we've had this problem a lot longer than even I thought, definitely longer than Catalunya. We know we've had it all season once we start thinking back about it, how hard training was compared to what it used to be. We're actually starting to think it may have started last year. I haven't trained properly in almost 12 months: I had the wrist operation so I couldn't train for a long time then, so the level that my fitness is coming back up to, I'm hoping that it's going to surpass anything I've done so far and hopefully for next year we'll be fitter and stronger."

On what might have been:
"We had the pace this year to try and fight for the championships and especially those five races when I wasn't right - that's when our bike was, and that was the hardest time for us. But we've got to look onwards and upwards, get ourselves ready for next year and another fight."

Valentino Rossi (Yamaha, 2nd on grid):
On his race preparations:
"It's a very good weekend, especially compared to Portugal: we started in a good way from yesterday and I feel good with the bike. Today we make some modifications; I am also quite fast in the wet so we are quite ready also for the wet conditions and it's so important. I am happy about the qualifying practice because we worked well with the bike and at the end we fixed a good setting for tomorrow. Unfortunately I didn't make the pole position for just a bit, but anyway I am fast, I feel good with the bike, and in all the sessions it's not so bad. It will be a tough race but it looks like we are ready."

On what's more important: winning the race or managing his title lead:
"Ah, the first part is for sure the championship. This weekend it looks like Jorge is a little bit in trouble - he's fourth but he's quite far, especially from me and Casey so the first part is to arrive in front of him, but you know, difficult to decide before. We need to understand what's happened in the race, how the start is and it looks like it's possible also to fight for the victory, so this is good. It's difficult because when you ride especially here in Phillip Island at a high speed you don't have a lot of room in the brain for making calculations with the points!"

Dani Pedrosa (Honda, 3rd on grid):
On his qualifying crash:
"I just touched the front brake and I don't know if it was the wind but I just crashed. I was lucky to not be injured and then I came back, took the other bike and tried to finish the session. The ones who have to start thinking are Valentino and Jorge, no, so I just try to make my race and do the best possible."

250cc pole-sitter Raffaele de Rosa (Honda):
"I am very happy with this first 250 pole and tomorrow I hope to do better than we did in Estoril. We need to take care because Simoncelli, Bautista and Aoyama are going for the title so I will try to enjoy it and do my best. We've been told (he and team-mate Aoyama) to do our own race, be careful and not give each other any problems."

125cc pole-sitter Pol Espargaro (Derbi):
On his current rich vein of form:
"Now we have a very good feeling with the team, with my people. The problem is that there are just three races more, that is the problem! Anyway we will take the victory if we can."
On his family's delight at his and brother Aleix's success:
"My family is now very, very happy for us. Aleix is in a very good moment, he will be in MotoGP with Pramac on a Ducati, he is very happy for me and for his future so the family is now … perfect!"