Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa has taken the MotoGP pole position at Indianapolis this evening by half a second and going a second faster than Valentino Rossi's existing qualifying record.
Pedrosa was the only man to dip underneath the 1'40s barrier, lapping at 1'39.730 while Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo secured second and Rossi third with his very last lap after pitting to top up his fork oil with just a handful of minutes left.
Rossi's lap was just good enough to bump Gresini Honda's Alex De Angelis onto the second row of the grid but there was only 11 one-thousandths of a second between the Italian pairing.
Monster Yamaha's Colin Edwards ended up fifth despite a crash with ten minutes to go while countryman Nicky Hayden was just behind the Texan by a little over a tenth.
De Angelis' team-mate Toni Elias, who also crashed at the end of the session, is at the head of row three ahead of crasher Andrea Dovizioso and Hayate's Marco Melandri.
Britain's James Toseland had been up as high as eighth but was eventually bumped back down to tenth place, just ahead of Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi, who is riding a development version of next year's GSV-R800.
