Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo has stolen MotoGP pole position from Casey Stoner at Mugello with his final lap of the day and was on the only man to dip under the 1'48s barrier with a 1'48.987.
In what was a hark back to the day's of qualifying tyres, all of the riders used the soft compound Bridgestones at the end of the session. Lorenzo's final lap was just enough to keep Marlboro Ducati's Stoner at bay who had himself just pole from Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi.
Valentino Rossi will start at the head of the second row after making most of the running early in the session with Randy De Puniet next to him and Colin Edwards rounding out row two.
Edwards was running in the top three for the first half an hour as he did a handful laps following his former team-mate but he was slowly shuffled back to sixth.
Andrea Dovizioso is first Repsol Honda rider with Dani Pedrosa half a second in arrears with Toni Elias, who crashed at the very end of qualifying. Britain's James Toseland finished in 14th place and did not look happy for the entire session.
