Stoner beats Hondas to Valencia pole

With a time of 1:31.502 set with eight minutes remaining in the one-hour session, the Ducati Marlboro beat the Repsol Honda pair of Dani Pedrosa, second only half a tenth behind the Australian, and Nicky Hayden, two tenths behind in third.

The American, who is racing for the final time with the Japanese manufacturer before moving to Ducati, set the pace for most of the session after having dominated proceedings in free practice, until Stoner took top spot with 14 minutes to go.

Yamaha had an odd qualifying session, with the customer-entered Tech 3 bikes of Colin Edwards and James Toseland leading the second row of the grid and beating the Fiat-sponsored factory entries.

Jorge Lorenzo qualified only in seventh, while newly-crowned champion Valentino Rossi was down in a lowly tenth place, almost 1.5 seconds behind Stoner.

Randy de Puniet, who after the first quarter of the session was gone crashed his LCR Honda and had to run back to the pits, will start the race from the sixth slot.

The Frenchman's crash happened ten minutes after Marco Melandri escaped unscathed after throwing his works Ducati against the barriers, and five minutes before the flag signalling rain on track was shown.

This prompted several riders to make early qualifying tyre runs, but ultimately the shower was extremely brief and light, and the session was not disrupted.

Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi qualified eighth and JiR Honda's Andrea Dovizioso ninth.

Pos  Rider             Bike           Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  1:31.502
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda     (B)  1:31.555  + 0.053
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  1:31.703  + 0.201
 4.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  1:32.212  + 0.710
 5.  James Toseland    Yamaha    (M)  1:32.518  + 1.016
 6.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     (M)  1:32.572  + 1.070
 7.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    (M)  1:32.594  + 1.092
 8.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    (B)  1:32.614  + 1.112
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     (M)  1:32.734  + 1.232
10.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (B)  1:32.962  + 1.460
11.  Toni Elias        Ducati    (B)  1:32.983  + 1.481
12.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  1:33.017  + 1.515
13.  Sylvain Guintoli  Ducati    (B)  1:33.352  + 1.850
14.  John Hopkins      Kawasaki  (B)  1:33.681  + 2.179
15.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (B)  1:33.767  + 2.265
16.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     (B)  1:33.848  + 2.346
17.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  1:33.879  + 2.377
18.  Marco Melandri    Ducati    (B)  1:34.174  + 2.672