Pedrosa beats Lorenzo to home pole

After a low-key start to the season in Qatar, Pedrosa has looked more competitive all weekend in Spain, and was able to overcome Lorenzo at the end of qualifying by 0.285 seconds.

Friday pace-setter Casey Stoner completes the front row, but had to overcome a strong challenge from his Ducati team-mate Nicky Hayden, who was only 0.049s slower in fifth and briefly looked set to out-qualify the Australian for the first time in their partnership.

World champion and Qatar winner Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) had been fastest for much of qualifying but could not raise his pace sufficiently in the end. Only a last-gasp lap got him into fourth ahead of Hayden.

LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet was the best of the non-factory riders in sixth, followed by Tech 3 Yamaha duo Colin Edwards and Ben Spies, the second works Honda of Andrea Dovizioso, and the resurgent Marco Melandri's Gresini Honda.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m39.202s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m39.487s  + 0.285s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m39.511s  + 0.309s
 4.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m39.558s  + 0.356s
 5.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m39.560s  + 0.358s
 6.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m30.591s  + 0.389s
 7.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m39.970s  + 0.768s
 8.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m39.989s  + 0.787s
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m40.021s  + 0.819s
10.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m40.027s  + 0.825s
11.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m40.206s  + 1.004s
12.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1m40.322s  + 1.120s
13.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m40.416s  + 1.214s
14.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m40.482s  + 1.280s
15.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m40.555s  + 1.353s
16.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m40.586s  + 1.384s
17.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m40.803s  + 1.601s