Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi has taken pole position for tomorrow's Brno MotoGP race despite losing the front and crashing with only three minutes of the session remaining.
Rossi's pole lap was set with nine minutes to go and only just pipped the time of team-mate Jorge Lorenzo who had been fastest all weekend. The Doctor lapped in 1'56.145, 0.50s faster than the Spaniard and also inside his own 2006 pole position record of 1'56.191, set in 2006 on Michelin qualifying tyres.
It was a three-way dice for head of the front row, with Rossi ouot of the blocks setting a 1'57.297 which was immediately bettered by Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa, who lapped in 1'56.629 with only nine minutes gone and his next lap was his fastest of the session, a 1'56.528, good enough for third.
After 20 minutes, Lorenzo started a run of laps which saw his time fall to 1'56.231 and the Spaniard then set his quickest time of 1'56.195 on the half hour, using the hard compound tyre.
Monster Yamaha's Colin Edwards clawed his way up to fourth with 25 minutes left on the clock, lapping in 1'57.083 and he was only just pipped for the top of row two by Gresini Honda's Toni Elias, who is currently without a ride for 2010, who went two one-hundredths of a second faster.
Pedrosa's team-mate Andrea Dovizioso took the last spot on row two, with Alex De Angelis heading row three, Nicky Hayden is the leading Ducati in eighth place and Loris Capirossi is ninth.
Britain's James Toseland was relegated from tenth to 14 in the final minutes of the session as VChris Vermeluen, Nico Canepa andRandy De Puniet came past. Mika Kallio, on Casey Stoner's Desmosedici, occupies 10th after a spectacular crash in the final ten minutes which saw his bike land upside down on the haybales.
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