Jerez -Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner took his second pole of the 2011 MotoGP season in as many rounds, topping an eventful qualifying session for the Gran Premio bwin de Espa?a on Saturday afternoon. He will be joined on the front row by his team-mate Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing). The Australian set the fastest time of the weekend with a 1’38.757 which was just 0.158s ahead of his team-mate, who had set the early pace in the morning practice. Stoner had a moment towards the very end of the session where he ran on at Turn 1, but he held top spot on the timesheet regardless of the minor mishap. The session was run in slightly cooler conditions compared to Friday with the wind that had played a large role on day one picking up slightly towards the end of the hour. Lorenzo was leading the session for the most part, but was unable to match the pace of the Repsol Hondas in front of him, with a deficit of 0.161s behind Stoner’s pole lap and just three-thousandths off his fellow Spaniard’s time. Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) will head the second row of the grid in fourth place, despite crashing at turn one in the last five minutes of the session. Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) will start in fifth place and continued to set times to place him as third fastest Honda, with Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) completing the second row in sixth. Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) crashed at Turn 5 in the final ten minutes of qualifying but finished as the top Ducati rider in seventh position, 1.135s behind the pole position lap. Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3), who scored a rostrum finish here in 2007, will start in eighth position after a fall in the dying moments of qualifying which he accepted with a bow to the crowd. His team-mate at Monster Yamaha Tech 3, Cal Crutchlow, was one place behind in ninth in his first qualifying session at the Andalucian circuit. There was a high speed crash for Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini) when he went off in the Ilex CrivillI corner early on, but the Japanese rider was able to remount his RC212V and took the final spot in the top ten.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) did not have the best of starts to his one-hour qualifying session after a nasty tumble into Turn 8 when he lost the front and finished up in the gravel. The Italian was able to make it back to the pits to jump on his spare bike and finished outside the top ten in 12th place Stefan Bradl followed up his first career pole - taken in Round 1 at Qatar - with a second in the Moto2 category as he topped the intermediate category session. The German, who won the opening round a fortnight ago, posted a best lap of 1’42.706 to finish 0.282s ahead of Yuki Takahashi (Gresini Racing), the only other rider under 1’43" in the session. Thomas Luthi (Interwetten Paddock Moto2) will complete the front row, with Marc Marquez heading up row two on his Team CatalunyaCaixa Repsol machine which he crashed towards the end of the session. Bradley Smith (Tech 3 Racing) and Alex de Angelis (JiR Moto2) took impressive second-row positions. Completing the top ten in the QP session were Michele Pirro (Gresini Racing), Aleix Espargara (Pons HP 40), Claudio Corti (Italtrans STR) and Juli?n Sim?n (Mapfre Aspar). Sandro Cortese secured pole for the 125 category with a fine late lap of 1’47.399 to beat Championship favourite and early standings leader Nico Terol (Bankia Aspar) to top spot in qualifying by 0.209s. The Intact Racing Team Germany rider and his Spanish rival will be joined by H?ctor Faubel (Bankia Aspar) on the front row. Avant-AirAsia-Ajo pair Efren Vazquez and Johann Zarco, along with Luis Salom (RW Racing) took second-row positions, with Jonas Folger (Red Bull Ajo Motorsport), Miguel Oliveira (Andalucia Banca Civica) and Danny Kent (Red Bull Ajo Motorsport) all on the third row. Alberto Moncayo (Andalucia Banca Civica) timed in tenth fastest, with Sergio Gadea (PEV-Blusens-SMX-Paris Hilton) 11th. (QNA)
Source: http://www.qnaol.net