Stoner on pole in Valencia

Added on Saturday, November 5th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments

Newly crowned Casey Stoner scored his twelfth pole position this season at Valencia this afternoon, for the MotoGP season finale.

After dominating much of the earlier free practice session, Stoner managed to tour the circuit a second quicker than his challengers. With a fastest time of 1m31.861 seconds Stoner has equalled Mick Doohan’s twelve pole positions in one season record.

After narrowly missing out on the top spot, Stoner’s Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa will start from second place, ahead of Ben Spies in third.

A strong qualifying performance saw the charging Randy De Puniet secure a second row start for tomorrow’s final race of the season. Alvaro Bautista will start alongside the Pramac Racing Team rider in fifth place, whilst Valentino Rossi will complete the second row of the grid in sixth place.

Nicky Hayden will head the third row of the gird, one place behind his Ducati teammate, with Andrea Dovizioso and Hector Barbera alongside him. Karel Abraham completes the top ten for this final race of the 2011 season, whilst Cal Crutchlow just missed out in eleventh place.

Loris Capirossi, who is paying tribute to Marco Simoncelli this weekend with the number 58 on his bike, will start twelfth, ahead of Toni Elias, Hiroshi Aoyama, Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Josh Hayes.

Tributes have been paid to Marco Simoncelli throughout the weekend so far, however all riders, organisers, teams and Marco’s family are set to join in a collective tribute to him before the start of the race tomorrow.

Qualifying Positions, MotoGP, Valencia:

Pos.	Rider	Nation	Team	Time
1	Casey STONER	AUS	Repsol Honda Team	1’31.861
2	Dani PEDROSA	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	1’32.875
3	Ben SPIES	USA	Yamaha Factory Racing	1’33.057
4	Randy DE PUNIET	FRA	Pramac Racing Team	1’33.118
5	Alvaro BAUTISTA	SPA	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	1’33.443
6	Valentino ROSSI	ITA	Ducati Team	1’33.478
7	Nicky HAYDEN	USA	Ducati Team	1’33.656
8	Andrea DOVIZIOSO	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	1’33.824
9	Hector BARBERA	SPA	Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP	1’34.186
10	Karel ABRAHAM	CZE	Cardion AB Motoracing	1’34.265
11	Cal CRUTCHLOW	GBR	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	1’34.329
12	Loris CAPIROSSI	ITA	Pramac Racing Team	1’34.671
13	Toni ELIAS	SPA	LCR Honda MotoGP	1’34.680
14	Hiroshi AOYAMA	JPN	San Carlo Honda Gresini	1’34.838
15	Katsuyuki NAKASUGA	JPN	Yamaha Factory Racing	1’35.999
16	Josh HAYES	USA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	1’36.042