On his 25th birthday, Casey Stoner achieved his third pole position of the season, clocking in at 1’30.107 during the qualifying for the Iveco Australian Grand Prix, which secured him the top starting spot at Phillip Island for the third consecutive year.
The Australian, who has triumphed in his home Grand Prix for the past three years, finished the session with an impressive lead of 0.668s ahead of the competition.
Despite varying weather conditions throughout the day, light rain affected only the final minutes of the MotoGP qualifier, with some spots falling during the hour while bright sunshine graced the coastal circuit. Stoner commented, “We have had virtually every single condition you could imagine thrown at us this weekend so we’ll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow before we make any decisions on set-up, but so far I think we have done the best possible job in every condition. We’re in the best possible position for tomorrow so I’m pretty happy so far.”
World Champion Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha) was the only competitor to come within a second of Stoner, as he joined him under the 1’31” mark. Lorenzo briefly took the lead with his time of 1’30.775 but ultimately secured second on the grid.
Ben Spies achieved his third front-row start of the season with the third best time in the session, opting to conclude his practice early after recording a lap 1.279s slower than Stoner’s pole time.
Also impressing was rookie Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini), who achieved his best qualifying of the season so far, finishing just 16-thousandths of a second behind in fourth. Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) followed closely in fifth, just 0.013s further back, while Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) secured sixth place in the session, despite experiencing a crash at turn four towards the end as the rain intensified.
Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) will occupy the third row with the seventh fastest time, whereas Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) struggled to overcome issues faced in both the free practice sessions and qualifying, landing in eighth, marking his worst starting position of the season thus far. Completing the top ten were Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini).
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda), who is currently injured, qualified in 15th position after recently returning from Spain following surgery on his fractured collarbone sustained in Japan. Due to pain, Pedrosa and his team opted against racing tomorrow, choosing to rest before the Portuguese event in two weeks.
Both Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) and Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) crashed during the session, qualifying in 16th and 17th positions respectively. Each has sustained muscular injuries and will undergo fitness tests prior to the race.
