Pedrosa takes popular Jerez pole

After leading briefly in the middle part of the session, Honda's Pedrosa regained the lead in the dying seconds by going 51 thousandths of a second faster than Yamaha rival Valentino Rossi.

Rossi in turn was only 0.007 seconds faster than Carlos Checa on his Honda Cecchinello, with the other Fiat Yamaha rider - Colin Edwards - a further 26 thousandths down.

Pedrosa was happy with his performance and is confident his top slot will be of help in tomorrow's race at Jerez.

"I think we did a good job in practice," he said. "Tomorrow will be a difficult race for sure. The lap times are very close, and also slower than when we were here in the test.

"But anyway I think to be in front is important and I think the set-up of the bike is not so bad. We must try tomorrow to make a good start and have a great race."

Casey Stoner, winner of the Qatar GP a fortnight ago, had to settle for fifth with his works Ducati, after having led most of the session. The Australian ended qualifying as the top Bridgestone rider, and did much better than teammate Loris Capirossi who could only manage 15th place.

Rizla Suzuki's John Hopkins took sixth spot, followed by Shinya Nakano in seventh and Toni Elias in eighth.

Marco Melandri could only qualify his Honda Gresini in ninth position, while Kenny Roberts Jr rounded up the top ten with a time 0.325 seconds slower than Pedrosa.

It was another difficult day for world champion Nicky Hayden, whose Honda could do no better than 11th position. He qualified just ahead of today's top Kawasaki rider Randy de Puniet.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Rider       Bike      Time
 1.  Pedrosa     Honda     1:39.402
 2.  Rossi       Yamaha    1:39.453  + 0.051
 3.  Checa       Honda     1:39.460  + 0.058
 4.  Edwards     Yamaha    1:39.486  + 0.084
 5.  Stoner      Ducati    1:39.524  + 0.122
 6.  Hopkins     Suzuki    1:39.625  + 0.223
 7.  Nakano      Honda     1:39.632  + 0.230
 8.  Elias       Honda     1:39.660  + 0.258
 9.  Melandri    Honda     1:39.722  + 0.320
10.  Roberts Jr  KR        1:39.727  + 0.325
11.  Hayden      Honda     1:39.834  + 0.432
12.  De Puniet   Kawasaki  1:40.144  + 0.461
13.  Barros      Ducati    1:40.196  + 0.794
14.  Vermeulen   Suzuki    1:40.328  + 0.926
15.  Capirossi   Ducati    1:40.391  + 0.989
16.  Jacque      Kawasaki  1:40.405  + 1.003
17.  Tamada      Yamaha    1:40.617  + 1.215
18.  Hofmann     Ducati    1:40.710  + 1.308
19.  Akiyoshi    Suzuki    1:41.202  + 1.800
20.  Guintoli    Yamaha    1:41.219  + 1.817