Pedrosa impressed by qualifying effort

Dani Pedrosa admitted that he had even impressed himself with his late surge to second place in qualifying at Assen

The Repsol Honda rider had not looked like a contender for pole position as his arch-rivals Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner tussled over the top spot for the majority of the session in Holland.

But as Stoner and Rossi made their way back to their pits after their final efforts, Pedrosa made a massive improvement with his last qualifying lap - beating Stoner's time around three quarters of the lap before falling just short in the final sector.

He ultimately missed pole by 0.032 seconds but managed to beat Rossi to second, as all three front row men lapped significantly faster than the previous qualifying record.

"The qualifying was good - I improved with every qualifying tyre," said Pedrosa.

"I was impressed with my last lap because 1:35.5 is very fast. So I'm happy to be on the front row, because it's also the first time I have been there at this track."

Pedrosa believes the weather could be a major factor in tomorrow's race. Rain hit the final practice sessions this morning, and although the track was dry in time for MotoGP qualifying, strong winds continued to make life difficult for the riders.

"Tomorrow maybe we'll have to wait for the weather, but it looks a little bit better than today," he said.

"It's quite windy, so this makes things more difficult, but we have to look at tomorrow's race now and try to do our best."