Casey Stoner ... on a flyerVALENTINO Rossi has taken the first pole position of the new 800cc MotoGP season in Qatar. The Italian put his Yamaha on the number one grid slot with a record time on Friday.
Rossi's last lap time of 1:55.002 beat the 1:55.683 set by young Australian Casey Stoner last year.
Stoner put in a brilliant last-chance effort at the Losail circuit on his Ducati to squeeze Rossi's American team-mate, Colin Edwards, to the third.
Stoner took pole position last year on a Honda, was just 0.005 seconds off Rossi's time.
Some of the session's surprises were: Elias being top Honda after struggling last year. Perhaps the smaller 800cc bikes suit his 250cc riding style. De Puniet ranking eigth place on his Kawasaki, higher than Hayden and Kenny Roberts Jr. ranking right down in 18th place.
The qualifying results in full:
1
Valentino ROSSI 1'55.002
2
Casey STONER 1'55.007
3
Colin EDWARDS 1'55.233
4
Toni ELIAS 1'55.358
5
Dani PEDROSA 1'55.361
6
John HOPKINS 1'55.833
7
Loris CAPIROSSI 1'55.851
8
Randy DE PUNIET 1'55.933
9
Nicky HAYDEN 1'56.041
10
Marco MELANDRI 1'56.222
11
Shinya NAKANO 1'56.306
12
Carlos CHECA 1'56.609
13
Chris VERMEULEN 1'56.639
14
Olivier JACQUE 1'56.754
15
Alex BARROS 1'56.81
16
Sylvain GUINTOLI 1'57.257
17
Alex HOFMANN 1'57.274
18
Kenny ROBERTS 1'57.495
19
Makoto TAMADA 1'58.024
20
Jeremy McWILLIAMS 1'59.606
21
Andrew PITT 1'59.725
