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Pedrosa on pole as Spies stars

Dani Pedrosa took his third pole position of the 2010 season after an extraordinary qualifying session for the Czech MotoGP at Brno on Saturday as he denied rookie Ben Spies, who took his first front row start

While Pedrosa's key rivals Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden all crashed out, the Honda man, who last started from the front spot at Mugello in June (a race which he went on to win) went on to hold off a spectacular challenge from reigning World Superbike champion Spies - who came within 0.4s of taking a landmark first pole in the premier class.

It was a breathless end to the session, which had already thrown up a surprise as both Tech 3 Yamaha riders Spies and Colin Edwards appeared at the top of time sheets to break the stranglehold of an intense Lorenzo and Pedrosa duel up until that point. Clearly benefitting from a revised front end introduced this weekend.

Spies's 1m57.4s had put him fastest with 15 minutes to go, ahead of his resurgent team-mate. But swiftly Lorenzo, then Pedrosa (on a 1m56.859s) went quicker again.

And that's when things went completely off script... First Hayden, who was fifth at the time and who had been outpacing his Ducati team-mate Casey Stoner, dropped the front-end of his GP10 at the high-speed entry to Turn 3.

The Italian machine's front appeared to just let go in to the left-hander, painfully trapping the American's hand on the bars. Hayden, hard as nails, was back in the pits before the session's end though.

While Rossi then moved up to third briefly, Spies re-emerged from the pits determined to prove this was no flash of spirit and once again went fastest on a 1m56.846s.

With that mark to beat Pedrosa, Lorenzo and Rossi all re-emerged from the pits, freshly shod on new tyres. But only Pedrosa managed to complete his attempt, as first Lorenzo shot off the track at Turn 11, admitting afterwards that he had been taking risks.

Such was the velocity of the world championship leader's shunt that his bike ended up atop the tyre barriers.

No sooner had the dust settled, than Rossi was up on his feet having fallen at the penultimate corner, visibly cursing in an uncharacteristic display of frustration.

All this left Pedrosa clear to deliver a lap of 1m56.508s to finally put the matter beyond doubt, 0.338s faster than Spies's best effort.

Lorenzo, despite being grounded ended the session third ahead of a noticeably subdued Stoner, Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso - who completed the top six.

Edwards eventually dropped to seventh, with Hayden eighth. Hector Barbera was ninth - another to crash late on, while Loris Capirossi completed the top ten on the sole Suzuki.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m56.508s           
 2.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m56.846s  + 0.338s 
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m56.865s  + 0.357s 
 4.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m56.868s  + 0.360s 
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m57.059s  + 0.551s 
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m57.117s  + 0.609s 
 7.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m57.222s  + 0.714s 
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m57.635s  + 1.127s 
 9.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m57.960s  + 1.452s 
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m57.981s  + 1.473s 
11.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m58.089s  + 1.581s 
12.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m58.169s  + 1.661s 
13.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m58.182s  + 1.674s 
14.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m58.430s  + 1.922s 
15.  Alex de Angelis   Interwetten Honda  1m58.522s  + 2.014s 
16.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m58.700s  + 2.192s 
17.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m37.190s  + 2.421s

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