Repsol Honda’s Casey Stoner sped to his fifth pole position of the season with the fastest ever lap by a motorcycle in a rain-shortened qualifying session at the majestic Mugello Circuit in the Tuscan hills north of Florence, Italy.
Riding in a very light drizzle - it wasn’t raining hard enough to coat the track - Stoner went to the top in the first 20 minutes with a lap of 1:48.034 mins., lowering the previous mark of 1:48.080 mins. set by Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo in Saturday morning practice.
At the time the lap was the fastest of the day by .600 sec., but Yamaha’s Ben Spies cut the gap to .445 sec., dropping San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli to third by .006 sec.
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With about 27 minutes remaining in the hour the rain picked up, sending everyone back to the pit box.
For the rest of the hour the riders sat and waited, with the few who returned to the track having no hope of improving their times. Stoner ended up on pole from Spies, who was on the front row for the second time in a row, and Simoncelli, who had his fifth consecutive front row start. Cycle News
Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) will start Sunday’s race 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 Spaniard’s qualifying time was 1’48.756, over half a second slower than his earlier best time. Completing the second row will be Colin Edwards on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 bike, trailing Lorenzo by 0.218s.
Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) 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) 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. motogp.com
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