Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli has taken his first ever MotoGP pole position at Barcelona his afternoon by the smallest of margins ahead of fellow HRC man Casey Stoner while Jorge Lorenzo was a third of a second off the pace in third.
Simoncelli went round in 1'42.413 with his final circulation which knocked Stoner off the top spot. Stoner's 1'42.429 had been set ten minutes beforehand while Lorenzo just nabbed the final front-row spot which bounced team-mate Ben Spies to the head of row two by only 0.14s.
Andrea Dovizoso, on the second Repsol-livieried bike, is next to Spies while Britain's Cal Crutchlow, on the sole Monster Yamaha, rounds out the second row and is only a little over a quarter of a second slower than the pole time.
Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi heads row three with team-mate Nicky Hayden next to him while Alvaro Bautista continues his strong form to take ninth fastest. Hector Barbera, on the Mapfre Ducati, rounds out the top ten in a fairly dull session. Karel Abraham crashed on his first flying lap but went back out later on. And that really is it...
