Ducati’s Casey Stoner has claimed the top spot in this afternoon’s United States GP qualifying session to extend his recent run of pole positions. Stoner has now taken five consecutive pole positions, the sixth in a row for a rider on Bridgestone tyres, in a competitive qualifying hour which saw the top thirteen riders break the existing pole record, set by Stoner in last year’s US GP. Stoner’s best lap, 1m20.700s, represents a 1.5s improvement over his previous pole record.
Casey Stoner clocked the fastest time over two sessions of free practice at the GP of Qatar, whilst Marco Melandri made a promising start but was unable to improve as he had hoped. Not only was Stoner fastest in both sessions, he managed to improve his pace on the second outing by four tenths of a second, despite a notable drop in track temperatures. Melandri also improved but it wasn't enough to hang on to eleventh place on the time sheets after his performance in the opening practice.