Stoner holds on for Mugello pole

Although he was won three of this season's five races, the result is Stoner's first pole of 2007.

The Ducati rider set his pole time before a mid-session shower and then hung on as the track dried in the closing moments.

Wet weather ace and Le Mans winner Chris Vermeulen took second, ahead of local favourite Valentino Rossi.

The session began in very damp conditions after the downpour that had struck during 125cc qualifying, but it began to dry rapidly, with Stoner and Vermeulen battling for provisional pole early on, and Marco Melandri also taking a turn on top.

Then with 26 minutes to go, the rain returned and it looked unlikely that anyone would be able to improve their times in the remaining minutes. That would have left Stoner, Vermeulen and Melandri on the front row, with Rossi down in eighth.

But the rain only lasted a few minutes, and with the sun reappearing, the session came alive again in the final 12 minutes after a minor improvement by Nicky Hayden convinced the rest of the field to head back out.

Rossi was one of the first riders to make progress, jumping to third on his first lap. But despite making fractional improvements on each of his following flying laps, he was unable to depose either Stoner or Vermeulen.

In his first race back after injury, Olivier Jacque took a superb fourth for Kawasaki, regaining the place from Loris Capirossi with the final lap of the hour. Marco Melandri joins them on row two, with Jacque's Kawasaki teammate Randy de Puniet in seventh.

Having been fastest in dry practice, Dani Pedrosa could only manage eighth in the wet. John Hopkins and Alex Barros completed the top ten. 

Rossi's teammate Colin Edwards failed to make sufficient progress in the improving conditions and will start 16th.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    2:00.359
 2.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    2:01.381  + 1.022
 3.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    2:01.695  + 1.336
 4.  Olivier Jacque    Kawasaki  2:01.709  + 1.350
 5.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    2:01.797  + 1.438
 6.  Marco Melandri    Honda     2:02.001  + 1.642
 7.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  2:02.443  + 2.084
 8.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     2:02.776  + 2.417
 9.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    2:02.932  + 2.573
10.  Alex Barros       Ducati    2:03.025  + 2.666
11.  Alex Hofmann      Ducati    2:03.920  + 3.561
12.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     2:04.185  + 3.826
13.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     2:04.353  + 3.994
14.  Carlos Checa      Honda     2:04.971  + 4.612
15.  Toni Elías        Honda     2:05.592  + 5.233
16.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    2:06.254  + 5.895
17.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    2:06.426  + 6.067
18.  Kenny Roberts Jr  KR        2:06.660  + 6.301
19.  Kurtis Roberts    KR        2:07.571  + 7.212
20.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    2:09.080  + 8.721