Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner has taken his ninth pole of the season at Valencia's MotoGP round after blitzing the field with only eight minutes of this afternoon's session left.
But the big news is that the 2008 MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi is down in 10th place after running out of qualifying tyres with around 20 minutes to go.
Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden held the pole for most of the hour after Colin Edwards, Shinya Nakano and Loris Capirossi began the scrap early on. The American really laid down the gauntlet with 15 minutes gone, putting in a 1'34.009 lap.
Edwards and Dani Pedrosa then began a fight for the rest of the front row positions until Hayden once again banged in a flyer, posting a 1'33.218 lap just after Sylvain Guintoli took second on the Alice Ducati.
Race direction put out the "diminshed adhension" flags on the half hour as it looked like rain was about to start falling on the Spanish tarmac and Hayden's pole looked safe.
However, the water didn't arrive. Edwards and Stoner commenced a ding-dong for second while Hayden again stretched his lead with a 1'32.468 lap on what we think was a qualifier put on in case it did rain.
Britain's James Toseland hauled himself up to fifth with a 1'33.592, while team-mate Edwards was busy fending off Rossi and Stoner. With 15 left, Toseland was on a potential front row lap but was baulked by Marco Melandri and pitted.
Toseland then lapped at 1'32.518 which was good enough for fourth, where he remained until Pedrosa just demoted him to the middle of the second row on his last lap.
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