Stoner didn't expect pole position

The championship leader claimed his fourth pole in a row by 0.176 seconds over title rival Valentino Rossi.

"We struggled a little bit in the middle part of this session," Stoner told the BBC.

"We didn't know which direction to go in, and we finally got a pretty good feeling at the end I think.

"I came around and did that lap and didn't really expect to be on pole because the qualifier I thought was a little bit too hard.

"I was able to do two laps on it and we really should have had a qualifier that just did one lap. But we're on pole position, so I'm pretty happy."

With practice having been heavily disrupted by the downpour that caused most of Friday's sessions to be cancelled, Stoner said he was unsure how Ducati compared to their rivals in race trim.

But he was very confident that his Bridgestone tyres would be in good shape for Sunday afternoon.

"Yesterday with the extra bit of rain we had to cancel a session and add it on this morning, so everything's been a little bit messed up," he said in the press conference.

"But anyway we're pretty happy with the setting we have at the moment. We were fast this morning, we did a race distance on the softest compound and everything's looking pretty good for the race tomorrow, so we're just going to have to wait and see because I'm not really sure on what everyone else's situation is."

Stoner is chasing a third consecutive race victory, which would take his win tally for the 2007 season to eight, and further extend his championship lead.