Jerez sees closest ever top ten

Only 0.325 seconds separated polesitter Dani Pedrosa from 10th-placed Kenny Roberts Jr., with 16 of the 20 riders lapping within 1.003 seconds of pole.

Pedrosa only beat Valentino Rossi to the top spot by 0.051 seconds, while the Italian was a tiny 0.007 seconds clear of the third front row starter, Carlos Checa.

"Everyone's running real close - half a second between the top 12 is pretty amazing," said John Hopkins after qualifying sixth, 0.223 seconds from pole.

It is believed that the close times are a quirk of the track and a consequence of the amount of testing data that the teams have from Jerez minimising the opportunities for dramatic improvement.

Championship leader Casey Stoner believes that the tightly packed field will make the race much tougher to win than the Qatar GP, where Stoner and Rossi pulled clear of the field.

"Qatar worked out perfectly and this weekend could do the same but we've got to be realistic because there's going to be a lot more riders up front in this race," said Stoner.

Marco Melandri rued the close times, believing that a small error ended up costing him an excessive number of grid positions.

"I lost two tenths which cost me almost two rows," he told television station Italia1.

"I'm in ninth place so I didn't expect such a selective session. That's why I said qualifying is difficult: you have two flying laps and you can't make mistakes otherwise your race is ruined."

Bridgestone's assistant manager of race tyre development Shinji Aoki felt that the tightly-packed grid gave a false impression of the tyre balance.

Michelin swept the top four positions on the grid - yet the leading five Bridgestone bikes were all within half a second of pole.

"On the one hand, I am pleased that our qualifying tyres have measured up against our rivals in terms of lap time and that the gap to the pole time has been significantly reduced following the pre-season Jerez test," said Aoki.

"However, the end results effectively masked the competitiveness of our qualifying tyres because of the compact nature of the grid.

"With the top five separated by just 0.1 seconds, it was hundredths-of-a-second that made the difference between pole position and second row."