Jorge Lorenzo beats Dani Pedrosa to Jerez MotoGP pole

With the expected rain never truly materialising, the track was able to dry throughout the hour-long session, leading to a flurry of improvements in the final minutes.

Pole turned out to be a straight fight between the Yamaha of Lorenzo and the Honda of Pedrosa, both of whom lowered the benchmark and traded places on an almost lap-by-lap basis in the final five minutes.

Lorenzo's penultimate effort, a 1m39.532s, ultimately proved enough, putting him just over one tenth clear of Pedrosa.

No other rider was able to get within one second of Lorenzo, with Ducati's Nicky Hayden 1.031s down in third.

"We are very happy with this pole," Lorenzo said. "It was a strange session because of the water so you had to pay a lot of attention and not crash. I was patient and started late, and now we see what happens in the race."

Hayden's late effort served to deprive Tech 3 Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow of a front row start, the Briton having been fastest at the halfway mark. A fall disrupted his rhythm, but on the second chassis and worn slicks he was able to do enough to secure fourth, ahead of the second works Honda of reigning champion Casey Stoner.

The Australian was never able to match his team-mate's pace, and had to abandon his final tour when he ran wide at Turn 1.

Ben Spies (Yamaha) completes the second row, ahead of Crutchlow's Tech 3 team-mate Andrea Dovizioso, Gresini's Alvaro Bautista and LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl.

It was another disastrous session for Valentino Rossi. Despite going out in the final minutes - prime conditions - he wound up 13th fastest, 2.3s down on his team-mate Hayden.

That means he starts behind the lead CRT bike of Randy de Puniet, who was 10th for Aspar, and both satellite Ducati bikes.

Colin Edwards finished bottom of the pile after crashing heavily at the halfway mark.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike                 Time      Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                    1m39.532s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                     1m39.667s  + 0.135s
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    1m40.563s  + 1.031s
 4.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha             1m40.570s  + 1.038s
 5.  Casey Stoner      Honda                     1m40.577s  + 1.045s
 6.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                    1m41.090s  + 1.558s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha             1m41.180s  + 1.648s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda             1m41.447s  + 1.915s
 9.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 1m41.550s  + 2.018s
10.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia             1m41.700s  + 2.168s
11.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati            1m41.724s  + 2.192s
12.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati             1m41.871s  + 2.339s
13.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                    1m42.961s  + 3.429s
14.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia             1m43.135s  + 3.603s
15.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda         1m43.363s  + 3.831s
16.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master Aprilia      1m44.308s  + 4.776s
17.  Yonni Hernandez   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki      1m44.467s  + 4.935s
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia              1m44.645s  + 5.113s
19.  Ivan Silva        Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki  1m44.717s  + 5.185s
20.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia         1m45.724s  + 6.192s
21.  Colin Edwards     Forward Suter-BMW         1m46.200s  + 6.668s