Pedrosa grabs pole at Mugello

Dani Pedrosa will start the 2010 Gran Premio d’Italia TIM from pole position at Mugello after a superb late lap in qualifying pushed him to the front of the grid. Securing his second pole of the season – his 15th in the premier class – with a time of 1’48.819 on the 23rd of his 24 laps, Pedrosa beat Jorge Lorenzo to the top spot by 0.177s.

The current World Championship standings leader had taken prime position with ten minutes of the session remaining, becoming the first rider of the weekend to get under the 1’49" barrier by four-thousandths of a second, but Pedrosa’s effort means Lorenzo will go for his third straight win of the campaign from second spot.

Joining the Spanish duo on the front row will be Casey Stoner after the Ducati Marlboro man found a more secure base on his bike which allowed him to qualify well, 0.613s off Pedrosa’s pace. His team-mate Nicky Hayden will lead the second row after taking fourth on the timesheet, with Colin Edwards of the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team and LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet both enjoying positive sessions as they took fifth and sixth places respectively.

Ben Spies (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) will start his first MotoGP race at Mugello from seventh place after an impressive weekend of learning the layout, and Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) will also be on the third row for his home race. Aleix Espargar¢ (Pramac Racing) continues to advance well on his satellite Ducati and he took ninth spot. Another rookie in Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP) will also be pleased with his efforts after he placed inside the top ten.

A brace of Italian riders followed in Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) and Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki), with Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) and Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) next.

Mika Kallio (Pramac Racing) and �lvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) continued to feel the strains of injuries as they came in 15th and 16th respectively, with a notable absence from the session Valentino Rossi. The reigning World Champion was taken to hospital earlier in the day after a crash in the morning practice, and will have an operation this afternoon on a fractured right tibia.

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