Pedrosa blasts to record pole in Spain

Dani Pedrosa took a dominant pole position for the MotoGP race at Barcelona, smashing Casey Stoner’s qualifying lap record from 2008 in the process.

The factory Honda rider went seven tenths clear of the field with his best lap on his final run.

His 1m40.893s was nearly 0.3 seconds faster than Stoner’s record, which was set when qualifying tyres were still used in MotoGP.

Pedrosa’s chasers were able to trim the gap by only another tenth of a second. Jorge Lorenzo briefly stole second place from Cal Crutchlow, but the Briton took it back seconds later.

Lorenzo’s session was not straightforward, as he abandoned his first run with a clutch problem.

After some animated discussions with his Yamaha crew he returned to the track with just enough time to put a run together and get onto the front row for Sunday’s race.

Alvaro Bautista was another to shine late in the Q2 session to take fourth, and he will lead the second row of the grid ahead of Nicky Hayden and Marc Marquez.

Valentino Rossi’s qualifying struggles continued, and he could only manage the seventh-best time.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap  1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m40.893s  2.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m41.501s  +0.608s  3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m41.566s  +0.673s  4.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda   1m41.714s  +0.821s  5.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m41.800s  +0.907s  6.  Marc Marquez      Honda           1m41.842s  +0.949s  7.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha          1m41.959s  +1.066s  8.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati   1m41.963s  +1.070s  9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati          1m42.053s  +1.160s 10.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda       1m42.090s  +1.197s 11.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m42.548s  +1.655s 12.  Aleix Espargaro   ART/Aprilia     1m42.878s  +1.985s 13.  Randy de Puniet   ART/Aprilia     1m43.186s  +2.293s 14.  Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati   1m43.330s  +2.437s 15.  Hector Barbera    FTR/Kawasaki    1m43.659s  +2.766s 16.  Colin Edwards     FTR/Kawasaki    1m43.983s  +3.090s 17.  Karel Abraham     ART/Aprilia     1m44.362s  +3.469s 18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter/BMW  1m44.369s  +3.476s 19.  Claudio Corti     FTR/Kawasaki    1m44.603s  +3.710s 20.  Michael Laverty   PBM/Aprilia     1m44.630s  +3.737s 21.  Yonny Hernandez   ART/Aprilia     1m44.913s  +4.020s 22.  Bryan Staring     FTR/Honda       1m45.441s  +4.548s 23.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter/BMW  1m46.302s  +5.409s 24.  Javier del Amor   FTR/Kawasaki    1m48.952s  +8.059s 

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/motorcycles/motogp/pedrosa-blasts-to-record-pole-in-spain

Boy Hayje Willi Heeks Nick Heidfeld Theo Helfrich