Lorenzo on pole as qualifying called off

Conditions have been poor throughout the weekend and worsened again before qualifying, leaving large patches of standing water on the track.

After checking the state of the circuit with the safety car, the organisers made a final decision to abandon qualifying 30 minutes after the scheduled start time.

The grid has therefore been set on practice times, and with Lorenzo having topped both of the sessions where the weather was reasonable enough for riders to participate properly, the world champion finds himself on pole for Yamaha, despite a heavy crash this morning.

Nicky Hayden's second place on Friday afternoon means he equals the best starting position of his Ducati career in second, ahead of Valentino Rossi on the other Yamaha.

Casey Stoner is fourth with the second Ducati, followed by Tech 3 Yamaha's Ben Spies in fifth on his Estoril debut.

Marco Melandri will be sixth, his highest grid position of his final MotoGP year with Gresini Honda.

The works Hondas of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa are only seventh and 12th, although Pedrosa showed better form this morning as he continues to recover from his collarbone injury.

Returnee Carlos Checa (Pramac Ducati) will start from the tail of the field for his first MotoGP race since 2007.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m48.853s
 2.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m49.435s  + 0.582s
 3.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m50.007s  + 1.154s
 4.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m50.081s  + 1.228s
 5.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m50.313s  + 1.460s
 6.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m50.500s  + 1.647s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m50.787s  + 1.934s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m50.824s  + 1.971s
 9.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m51.250s  + 2.397s
10.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m51.518s  + 2.665s
11.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m51.916s  + 3.063s
12.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m52.734s  + 3.881s
13.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m53.018s  + 4.165s
14.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m53.317s  + 4.464s
15.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m53.537s  + 4.684s
16.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1m53.933s  + 5.080s
17.  Carlos Checa      Pramac Ducati      1m54.073s  + 5.220s