Australia MotoGP: Casey Stoner shrugs off crash to seal home pole

The Australian has been a class apart all weekend as he pushes to take a sixth consecutive Phillip Island win in his final MotoGP appearance in front of his home crowd.

Fastest by commanding margins in all three practice sessions, Stoner was soon at the top of the timing screens in qualifying too.

Even a high-side at the exit of Turn 4 could not stop him. Stoner landed safely - with no further damage to his injured ankle - and swiftly returned for his spare bike, with which he immediately improved his pace.

Stoner kept chipping away at his times and eventually reached 1m29.623s. Drizzle in the final couple of minutes prevented a push to go even faster.

With Stoner in another league, Jorge Lorenzo has focused on beating title rival Dani Pedrosa - and looks in good shape to wrap up the 2012 title on Sunday.

Lorenzo's Yamaha was half a second down on Stoner in qualifying, but beat Pedrosa's third-placed Honda by 0.435s.

The Tech 3 Yamahas of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso took fourth and sixth, split by Stefan Bradl's LCR Honda.

Randy de Puniet got his CRT Aprilia ahead of both works Ducatis for a while. He eventually had to settle for a still spectacular ninth overall for Aspar, just 0.006s off Valentino Rossi.

Stoner's crash aside, the only incident was a high-side for Avintia's stand-in rider Kris McLaren. The Australian Superbike regular was unhurt but still 6.7s off the pace on injured Yonny Hernandez's regular bike.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time        Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner        Honda                 1m29.623s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                1m30.140s   + 0.517s
 3.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                 1m30.575s   + 0.952s
 4.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha         1m30.763s   + 1.140s
 5.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             1m30.798s   + 1.175s
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha         1m31.200s   + 1.577s
 7.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         1m31.490s   + 1.867s
 8.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                1m31.661s   + 2.038s
 9.  Randy de Puniet     Aspar Aprilia         1m31.667s   + 2.044s
10.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                1m31.681s   + 2.058s
11.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        1m31.910s   + 2.287s
12.  Aleix Espargaro     Aspar Aprilia         1m31.990s   + 2.367s
13.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         1m32.231s   + 2.608s
14.  Michele Pirro       Gresini FTR-Honda     1m33.050s   + 3.427s
15.  Danilo Petrucci     Ioda Suter-BMW        1m33.069s   + 3.446s
16.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     1m33.450s   + 3.827s
17.  James Ellison       Paul Bird Aprilia     1m33.489s   + 3.866s
18.  Roberto Rolfo       Speed Master Aprilia  1m33.577s   + 3.954s
19.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m34.156s   + 4.533s
20.  Kris McLaren        Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m36.324s   + 6.701s