Pedrosa takes comfortable pole

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa continued his dominance of the Motegi weekend with a commanding pole position

Pedrosa took pole with eight minutes remaining in the session, Valentino Rossi snatching it a few minutes later before Pedrosa took nearly half a second off Rossi's effort with a 1:45.864 to put it beyond doubt.

Valentino Rossi continued on from this morning to record the second-fastest time on his Yamaha, though his fastest lap in the final minutes was still almost four-tenths slower than pole. Pedrosa's teammate Nicky Hayden completed an all-Michelin front row.

Heading row two is Randy de Puniet, with a time he set 25 minutes into the session and which remained pole until Pedrosa beat it late in the session. Next to de Puniet is Toni Elias, with de Puniet's Kawasaki teammate Anthony West alongside him.

Colin Edwards and Loris Capirossi put in their best efforts of the weekend to be the next two riders on the grid, while Capirossi's teammate and championship leader Casey Stoner continued to struggle on his way to ninth fastest time, over 1.25 seconds slower than Pedrosa.

After looking strong on Friday, all three Suzukis struggled in qualifying. 11th for John Hopkins was the best for the team, with Kousuke Akiyoshi 13th and Chris Vermeulen down in 17th.

Kawasaki's third rider Akira Yanagawa continued his disappointing weekend in 19th, while Pramac D'Antin's substitute for Alex Hofmann, Shinichi Ito, ended 20th on the grid.

Pos  Rider             Bike           Time
 1.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     (M)  1:45.864
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (M)  1:46.255  + 0.391
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  1:46.575  + 0.711
 4.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  (B)  1:46.643  + 0.779
 5.  Toni Elias        Honda     (B)  1:46.804  + 0.940
 6.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  1:46.912  + 1.048
 7.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  1:46.997  + 1.133
 8.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    (B)  1:47.047  + 1.183
 9.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  1:47.121  + 1.257
10.  Marco Melandri    Honda     (B)  1:47.136  + 1.272
11.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    (B)  1:47.163  + 1.299
12.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (M)  1:47.295  + 1.431
13.  Kousuke Akiyoshi  Suzuki    (B)  1:47.316  + 1.452
14.  Carlos Checa      Honda     (M)  1:47.334  + 1.470
15.  Alex Barros       Ducati    (B)  1:47.367  + 1.503
16.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    (D)  1:47.714  + 1.850
17.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  1:47.914  + 2.050
18.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    (D)  1:48.085  + 2.221
19.  Akira Yanagawa    Kawasaki  (B)  1:48.569  + 2.705
20.  Shinichi Ito      Ducati    (B)  1:49.548  + 3.684
21.  Kurtis Roberts    KR        (M)  1:50.035  + 4.178