Moto2: Barbera beats Simoncelli to pole

The Pepe Aprilia rider got within one hundredth of a second of the Gilera rival with just a handful of seconds to go in the 45-minute session at Donington Park, but the Spaniard's last lap of 1m31.802s put him ahead of the Italian by 0.092s.

With 13 minutes left Simoncelli managed to demote Scot Honda rider Hiroshi Aoyama, who had been leading until then, down to second, and there he stayed until Barbera's final laps pushed him into third, with Blusens Aprilia's Alex Debon completing the front row.

Mike di Meglio will lead the second row, ahead of Aspar Aprilia team-mate Alvaro Bautista and Mattia Pasini, who crashed his Toth Aprilia with three minutes remaining and had to walk to the pits.

Thai Honda's Ratthapak Wilairot qualified eighth, followed by the Aprilias of Karel Abraham and Lukas Pesek rounding up the top ten.

Germany's 43-year-old Ralf Waldmann, who last raced in the world championship in 2002 after winning 14 races in the 250cc class, managed to qualify in 20th place on his one-off return with Kiefer Aprilia while standing for injured Vladimir Leonov.

Pos  Rider             Bike     Time               Laps
 1.  Hector Barbera    Aprilia  1m31.802s           24
 2.  Marco Simoncelli  Gilera   1m31.894s + 0.092s  20
 3.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Honda    1m32.055s + 0.253s  21
 4.  Alex Debon        Aprilia  1m32.268s + 0.466s  21
 5.  Mike Di Meglio    Aprilia  1m32.643s + 0.841s  22
 6.  Alvaro Bautista   Aprilia  1m32.664s + 0.862s  23
 7.  Mattia Pasini     Aprilia  1m32.883s + 1.081s  18
 8.  R.Wilairot        Honda    1m33.046s + 1.244s  21
 9.  Karel Abraham     Aprilia  1m33.145s + 1.343s  22
10.  Lukas Pesek       Aprilia  1m33.203s + 1.401s  20
11.  Raffaele De Rosa  Honda    1m33.218s + 1.416s  24
12.  Thomas Luthi      Aprilia  1m33.360s + 1.558s  17
13.  R.Locatelli       Gilera   1m33.405s + 1.603s  22
14.  Hector Faubel     Honda    1m33.503s + 1.701s  22
15.  Jules Cluzel      Aprilia  1m33.622s + 1.820s  20
16.  Alex Baldolini    Aprilia  1m33.768s + 1.966s  20
17.  Shoya Tomizawa    Honda    1m33.901s + 2.099s  22
18.  Imre Toth         Aprilia  1m34.661s + 2.859s  21
19.  Axel Pons         Aprilia  1m35.351s + 3.549s  23
20.  Ralf Waldmann     Aprilia  1m35.408s + 3.606s  21
21.  Valentin Debise   Honda    1m35.600s + 3.798s  23
22.  Balazs Nemeth     Aprilia  1m36.202s + 4.400s  20
23.  Bastien Chesaux   Honda    1m36.309s + 4.507s  22
24.  Luke Mossey       Aprilia  1m37.227s + 5.425s  20
-    Aitor Rodriguez   Aprilia  1m38.638s + 6.836s  14
-    Alex Kenchington  Yamaha   1m38.657s + 6.855s  23
-    Robin Halen       Aprilia  1m41.680s + 9.878s  19