Stoner beats Hondas to Valencia pole

Casey Stoner took his ninth pole position of the season ahead of tomorrow's MotoGP season finale at Valencia.

With a time of 1:31.502 set with eight minutes remaining in the one-hour session, the Ducati Marlboro beat the Repsol Honda pair of Dani Pedrosa, second only half a tenth behind the Australian, and Nicky Hayden, two tenths behind in third.

The American, who is racing for the final time with the Japanese manufacturer before moving to Ducati, set the pace for most of the session after having dominated proceedings in free practice, until Stoner took top spot with 14 minutes to go.

Yamaha had an odd qualifying session, with the customer-entered Tech 3 bikes of Colin Edwards and James Toseland leading the second row of the grid and beating the Fiat-sponsored factory entries.

Jorge Lorenzo qualified only in seventh, while newly-crowned champion Valentino Rossi was down in a lowly tenth place, almost 1.5 seconds behind Stoner.

Randy de Puniet, who after the first quarter of the session was gone crashed his LCR Honda and had to run back to the pits, will start the race from the sixth slot.

The Frenchman's crash happened ten minutes after Marco Melandri escaped unscathed after throwing his works Ducati against the barriers, and five minutes before the flag signalling rain on track was shown.

This prompted several riders to make early qualifying tyre runs, but ultimately the shower was extremely brief and light, and the session was not disrupted.

Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi qualified eighth and JiR Honda's Andrea Dovizioso ninth.

Pos Rider Bike Time 1. Casey Stoner Ducati (B) 1:31.502 2. Dani Pedrosa Honda (B) 1:31.555 + 0.053 3. Nicky Hayden Honda (M) 1:31.703 + 0.201 4. Colin Edwards Yamaha (M) 1:32.212 + 0.710 5. James Toseland Yamaha (M) 1:32.518 + 1.016 6. Randy de Puniet Honda (M) 1:32.572 + 1.070 7. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha (M) 1:32.594 + 1.092 8. Loris Capirossi Suzuki (B) 1:32.614 + 1.112 9. Andrea Dovizioso Honda (M) 1:32.734 + 1.232 10. Valentino Rossi Yamaha (B) 1:32.962 + 1.460 11. Toni Elias Ducati (B) 1:32.983 + 1.481 12. Chris Vermeulen Suzuki (B) 1:33.017 + 1.515 13. Sylvain Guintoli Ducati (B) 1:33.352 + 1.850 14. John Hopkins Kawasaki (B) 1:33.681 + 2.179 15. Shinya Nakano Honda (B) 1:33.767 + 2.265 16. Alex de Angelis Honda (B) 1:33.848 + 2.346 17. Anthony West Kawasaki (B) 1:33.879 + 2.377 18. Marco Melandri Ducati (B) 1:34.174 + 2.672

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