Stoner takes another pole at Laguna

The Ducati Marlboro rider, who utterly dominated all free practice runs this weekend, shot to the top of the timesheets just six minutes into the one-hour session and never relinquished the position after improving on his own best lap six more times to finish with a 1:20.700.

In the end, the rider getting closest to the reigning world champion was championship leader Valentino Rossi, who sneaked in a lap within half a second of pole just as time ran out, to fend off the challenge from teammate Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol Honda rival Nicky Hayden.

The American rider will start the race from the front row, having qualified almost three tenths slower than Rossi, while the Spaniard, who is the only other rider to stay within one second of Stoner's time, will head row two, ahead of Tech 3 Yamaha's James Toseland and LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet.

Toseland's teammate Colin Edwards could qualify no better than seventh, followed by Chris Vermeulen's Rizla Suzuki and Andrea Dovizioso's JiR Honda.

Despite sliding off in his last lap, Alice Ducati's Toni Elias enjoyed his best qualifying performance of the year with his tenth-fastest time, while Marco Melandri had a disappointing session that saw him end up 15th on the other factory Ducati, after having shown promising pace in practice.

The two Kawasakis will start last in 17th and 18th spot, with John Hopkins's stand-in Jamie Hacking beating regular rider Anthony West by 1.2 seconds, despite the American crashing and running back to the pits for the final 15 minutes after a couple of early off-track excursions.

Both Honda Gresini riders also suffered crashes, with Shinya Nakano sliding through the gravel and into the air fence, and Alex de Angelis crashing hard on the asphalt after a high-side and hurting his left forearm and thumb.

Despite looking to be in a lot of pain, the rider from San Marino was back on the bike ten minutes after the accident, but could qualify only 16th.

Pos  Rider             Bike           Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  1:20.700
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (B)  1:21.147  + 0.447
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  1:21.430  + 0.730
 4.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    (M)  1:21.864  + 0.936
 5.  James Toseland    Yamaha    (M)  1:21.848  + 1.148
 6.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     (M)  1:21.921  + 1.221
 7.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  1:21.947  + 1.247
 8.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  1:21.971  + 1.271
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     (M)  1:21.974  + 1.274
10.  Toni Elias        Ducati    (B)  1:21.999  + 1.299
11.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    (B)  1:22.039  + 1.339
12.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (B)  1:22.092  + 1.392
13.  Ben Spies         Suzuki    (B)  1:22.147  + 1.427
14.  Sylvain Guintoli  Ducati    (B)  1:22.719  + 2.019
15.  Marco Melandri    Ducati    (B)  1:22.957  + 2.257
16.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     (B)  1:23.035  + 2.335
17.  Jamie Hacking     Kawasaki  (B)  1:23.309  + 2.609
18.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  1:24.525  + 3.825