Aussie Stoner snares Indy MotoGP pole

Championship leader Casey Stoner of Australia captured his seventh pole of the year with a track record at the Indianapolis Moto Grand Prix on Saturday.

Stoner set the qualifying pace with a fastest lap of 1min 38.850sec and will take a 32-point lead over Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo in the title chase into Sunday’s race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“It has been quite complicated, actually, knowing whether to chase settings and get the bike set up, knowing whether the track was going to improve more or not,” Stoner said.

The former record holder over the 2.621-mile road course was 1:39.730 by Spain’s Dani Pedrosa in 2009. The top three qualifiers Saturday were all faster than the old mark.

“We’re still undecided about settings, things like that, because if conditions improve tomorrow, then whatever we find out today is going to be irrelevant,” Stoner said.

“We haven’t made a lot of changes to the bike. We’ve just been experimenting with different tires.”

The Aussie owned the top speed through most of the qualifying session. His fast lap on his Honda came on the 22nd of his 25 trips.

American Ben Spies, who won the 2010 Indy pole, was the second fastest qualifier at 1:39.373 on a Yamaha with Lorenzo the third fastest at 1:39.629 on a Yamaha.

Spies anticipates a victory will be difficult to attain over Stoner, who has not won at Indianapolis in three previous starts.

“He’s riding really fast, for sure,” Spies said. “We have to be perfect and not makes any mistakes, just hang on the first few laps.

“The bike is working really good. We did race distance with the tires early on, feels great. Just couldn’t get the fast lap out of the bike.”

Pedrosa, who won last year’s race at Indianapolis, was the fourth quickest at 1:39.947.
Troubles continued for seven-time series champion Valentino Rossi, who recorded his 69th GP victory in 2008 at Indianapolis.

Rossi qualified 14th, his worst starting spot in four trips to Indianapolis. His worst prior qualifying performance at Indy was seventh last year.
 

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