Jorge Lorenzo takes  pole position for the United States Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. 

Casey Stoner will start from the front row of the grid for the fourth race in succession tomorrow after sealing the second fastest time in this afternoon’s qualifying practice for the USGP. The Australian held provisional pole position for much of the hour-long session but a late effort from Jorge Lorenzo edged him out by just 0.191 seconds.

At the same time Stoner’s team-mate Nicky Hayden was bumped off the second row, the American dropping to seventh place – the same position he finished yesterday afternoon’s opening session. Having only improved by two tenths in this morning’s final free practice Hayden was pleased to make progress this afternoon and is confident he can put on a strong showing for the home fans in tomorrow’s race.

CASEY STONER (Ducati Team)  2nd (1’21.169)
“We’re closer to the front than last week but we still need to improve the bike before tomorrow. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t make full use of the session this afternoon and ended up going back to the setting we had this morning. We tried a few different things that weren’t really working and unfortunately one of the settings took a long time to change so we wasted time there. To be honest I was happy to post the time I did - I thought we could have gone a bit quicker today considering how good the bike felt from yesterday to this morning but we just didn’t take that extra step. Hopefully we can take it in the warm-up and have our most competitive race of the season tomorrow.”

Andrea Dovizioso qualified in third place for the U.S. Grand Prix today and in so doing secured the first front row start of his MotoGP career. The 24-year-old Italian was delighted to notch up this particular milestone and with a clear run into the Laguna Seca circuit’s fast turn one he has given himself an excellent chance of battling at the front of tomorrow’s 32-lap race. Dovizioso pipped his factory Honda team-mate by just 0.038s, and Dani Pedrosa will start in fourth place and the front of the second row.

From the start of the qualifying session both Repsol Honda RC212Vs were well in contention and remained in the top three positions for much of the hour. Dovizioso continued his confident form from yesterday and several times was the quickest rider over the first part of the lap, before losing a little time in the final sector. It’s an area he improved on his last qualifying run and Dovizioso is confident that the race pace he established today will allow him to fight for podium honours.

Pedrosa was also on the pace today and in the morning session finished just 0.113s behind the fastest time. In the afternoon he continued to work on his pace in race trim, but when it came to the final qualifying laps on soft tyres he couldn’t improve as much as the other frontrunners and so settled for a place at the head of second row. His rivals can’t relax though because this is the same position from which Pedrosa won last year’s U.S. Grand Prix, and the 24-year-old Spaniard is confident that a few set-up adjustments in warm-up tomorrow can allow him the chance to make a repeat of that result and give him his first back-to-back MotoGP wins after his victory at the last race in Germany a week ago.

ANDREA DOVIZIOSO

“I’m very happy about this session because this is my first front row of the season and qualifying was an area that we had to improve. We were fast from the beginning today and I have to thank the team because they’ve done a good job this weekend. Yesterday and also today I have been losing some time in T4, but for the final qualifying lap I pushed at 100 per cent and did my best final sector time - which gave me my fastest lap time and a place on the front row. I have a good race pace but we still need to improve a little because Stoner and Lorenzo are very fast. There is still a gap but we are not too far away. I think the race pace tomorrow will be between the high 1m 21s and 1m 22 dead, and I’m confident I can fight with the others. Plus, starting from first row makes this easier. For the tyre choice we will probably go with the soft option rear. Our machine balan ce is good and we have a positive feeling on this track so I’m confident for tomorrow.”

Qualifying Results