Stoner amazed by Jerez performance

The former world champion enjoyed a 0.7-second margin over his rivals, having been fastest throughout the shoot-out and the preceding morning practice session.

Since graduating to MotoGP in 2006, Stoner has never qualified or finished higher than fifth at Jerez, despite his incredible record at other tracks over the past two seasons.

"I really don't know where it came from - on this track I've never so much as taken a podium, or even started on the front row (here)," said Stoner.

"It's really been a bogey track for both myself and my Ducati bike. The last two years have been difficult (at Jerez).

"But today we found a good setting this morning and we came out for this qualifying and didn't really expect much. I thought everyone else was going to up the ante - and they did, they got the lap times down, but I never expected to be able to do the times that I did when I needed to pull it out."

Stoner won a new BMW road car as his prize for topping the 'GP Zero' qualifying session, which has become the traditional curtain-raiser to the MotoGP season. This year's championship commences at Losail on 12 April.