Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi has snatched pole position at this afternoon's Indy MotoGP qualifying session, beating arch rival Casey Stoner by less than a tenth of a second to take only his second Tissot watch of the year.

In a drama-free hour, Rossi swapped the lead with Stoner, team-mate Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden who was pushed off the front row inside the final 30 seconds. Lorenzo ended up third, four-tenths behind his team-leader

Hayden is absolutely spectacular at this left-hand track, sliding, spinning and smoking his rear Michelin but his heroics let him down on a potential pole lap as his Honda RC212V just got away from him and cost him the the number one slot with five minutes left.

Alice Ducati's Toni Elias, who was fastest in third free practice, led for the early part of the session before normal service was resumed and Stoner and Rossi began to swap times for the lead.

With 25 minutes to go, Hayden delighted the home fans by going quickest with a 1'42.206 but Randy De Puniet nicked it off him straight away with Rossi following him into second.

With 15 minutes left, Lorenzo popped up into pole with  1'41.488 and Rizla Suzuki's Ben Spies was on a pole schedule for two-thirds of a lap but a lack of sheer grunt along the straight put paid to his effort.

Hayden stuck in another pole lap with seven minutes to go but was immediately busted down to second by Rossi on a qualifying tyre. Stoner rocked into second a minute later.

With a minute to go, Rossi banged his pole lap in and was quickly followed by Lorenzo into second but the Spaniard was usurped by Stoner just fractions of time later.

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