Stoner surprised to be on pole

Australian GP pole looked set to be disputed by the Michelin-shod Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Honda) going into the final minutes, but then Stoner produced a record 1:28.665 lap on his final run to take his eighth pole of the season by 0.069 seconds over Lorenzo.

This is the first time this season I've had all three qualifying tyres the same," Stoner said.

"Unfortunately even with the first tyre, in the last three corners on the left hand side it was completely finished and I was spinning up everywhere.

"On the last tyre I went into the lap and I didn't really expect anything, I was just hoping for a front row. I tried to make the tyre last as long as possible - I was picking the bike up coming out of corners. Those last three left-handers were a little bit 'do or die', just trying to get the traction out of it.

"When I came across the line and did that lap time I thought it should be enough for a front row, but we ended up with pole, so I'm extra happy today."

Stoner had also been concerned about his race pace prior to the session after a difficult practice, but was more confident by the end of qualifying, having completed some successful long runs before his late flying laps.

"We struggled a little bit this morning with race set-up, so we really needed this afternoon's session to get the race tyres set up," he said.

"We managed to get a reasonably good feeling in the end, so when we put the qualifying tyres on were quite happy with the way things were working and we thought we should be able to do okay."