Casey Stoner pleased by German Grand Prix after having to change chassis

Stoner had begun the session on the chassis, but had abandoned it due to struggling with rear grip - a choice he says was vindicated by immediately matching his best time on the replacement frame.

Halfway through the session however he pulled off on the outside of Turn 5 when his engine failed, forcing him to switch back to the original chassis for the dramatic final minutes of qualifying.

"We weren't too happy with the set-up, with the rear grip and feeling, so I went onto my number one bike and immediately the feeling was better and I matched my best lap time on my first lap," Stoner explained.

"Unfortunately the engine just switched off. Not all the electronics, just the engine. We're not too sure what happened just yet, whether some water got in and created it, we'll know something later on.

"By the time I went back to the garage and put the tyres on my second bike it started to rain heavily, we decided to sit and wait because there was no chance of improving in conditions like that.

"We went out with 10-11 minutes to go, just tried to warm the tyres up and put some lap times down as the track was drying, and timed it well enough to do our best lap right at the last and get pole position.

"We are pretty happy, and after a difficult session it was nice to come out on top."