MotoGP World Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo has put his Fiat Yamaha on pole position for the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring.
It’s the fourth-straight pole for the Spaniard.
In a dramatic period, qualifying was halted midway through the sessions when Lorenzo’s M1 spilled oil on the track. The incident resulted in crashes for Ben Spies and Randy de Puniet.
Casey Stoner (Ducati Team) will launch his challenge for a first victory after he finished the session just 0.024s behind Lorenzo (1:21.817).
“We would have liked to have been on pole position, I think I would have been fast enough but unfortunately I got held up and wasn’t able to do the job,” said Stoner.
“So we’ll just have to see tomorrow.”
“Looking at the lap times, myself, Jorge and Dani are all running very consistently and very similar lap times.
“We don’t really know what to expect, we will have to do our job and our best, but looking at the lap times things are going to be very tight.”
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) will also be on the front row as he was the third and final rider under the 1:22 mark.
Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) will head up the second row as he followed three-tenths behind his team-mate, whilst Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) will start the race from fifth as he ended up 0.578s off the pace of Lorenzo. Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) achieved his best premier class qualification to date with sixth.
The session was red flagged with 25 minutes remaining as Lorenzo’s M1 started to spill oil, and flames then began to pour out of the side of the Spaniard’s bike as he approached turn one before he managed to pull off the track. Following behind Spies (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) fell in the split oil, as did De Puniet (LCR Honda) and the Frenchman collided with Spies’ stationary bike as he slid off.
De Puniet went for X-rays on his right leg at the Clinica Mobile which confirmed no breaks, and he will be hopeful of taking his seventh spot on the grid having started 189 consecutive races since 1999.
Alex de Angelis (Interwetten Honda MotoGP) had a crash towards the end of the session and was uninjured, whilst Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) had a run-off late on.
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