Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, and Ben Spies took the top 3 positions in qualifying at Phillip Island and will start on the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s race.

Casey Stoner was fastest for the majority of the session and his pole position marks the 25th of his career.

Jorge Lorenzo cames the closest to breaking Stoner’s tight hold of the session with a flying lap, but Stoner responded almost immediately and put in a 1m30.281s to regain the top position. In the closing minutes of the qualifying session as rain clouds once again started to gather, Stoner managed to improve on his time and posted a 1m30.107s lap to put pole position well and truly beyond the reach of the rest of the grid.

CASEY STONER (Ducati Team) 1st – 1’30.107
“I always seem to celebrate my birthday here at Phillip Island but I guess there are worse places to be! We have had virtually every single condition you could imagine thrown at us this weekend so we’ll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow before we make any decisions on set-up but so far I think we have done the best possible job in every condition. I’m quite happy with the setting in the wet even though we haven’t had a fully wet session, which made it difficult to get a good reading from the bike. We have had two good sessions today, making progress in the last half an hour of this morning and another big step again in the last half hour of the afternoon. With the last two soft tyres I was able to make a substantial improvement to the lap time and we’re in the best possible position for tomorrow so I’m pretty happy so far.

MotoGP Qualifying Times – Phillip Island:
1. Casey Stoner Ducati 1m30.107s
2. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1m30.775s + 0.668s
3. Ben Spies Tech 3 Yamaha 1m31.386s + 1.279s
4. Marco Simoncelli Gresini Honda 1m31.402s + 1.295s
5. Colin Edwards Tech 3 Yamaha 1m31.415s + 1.308s
6. Nicky Hayden Ducati 1m31.530s + 1.423s
7. Randy de Puniet LCR Honda 1m31.554s + 1.447s
8. Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1m31.627s + 1.520s
9. Andrea Dovizioso Honda 1m32.018s + 1.911s
10. Marco Melandri Gresini Honda 1m32.367s + 2.260s
11. Aleix Espargaro Pramac Ducati 1m32.542s + 2.435s
12. Mika Kallio Pramac Ducati 1m32.816s + 2.709s
13. Hiroshi Aoyama Interwetten Honda 1m33.190s + 3.083s
14. Alvaro Bautista Suzuki 1m33.224s + 3.117s
15. Dani Pedrosa Honda 1m33.384s + 3.277s
16. Hector Barbera Aspar Ducati 1m33.390s + 3.283s
17. Loris Capirossi Suzuki 1m34.269s + 4.162s

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