Lorenzo eyes fourth Portuguese win

Jorge Lorenzo and bitter rival Marco Simoncelli waged a public war of words on Saturday after the world champion clinched pole position for Sunday's Portuguese MotoGP.

The Yamaha rider, who has won the last three races at Estoril, also secured his fourth consecutive pole at the track at the expense of Italy's Simoncelli and fellow Spaniard Dani Pedrosa.

Lorenzo lines up on the back of success in his home grand prix in Jerez and a second-place finish behind Casey Stoner in the season-opening race in Qatar.

He leads the overall standings by nine points from Honda's Pedrosa with another Honda rider, Australian Stoner who failed to finish in Jerez, 22 points back in third.

But Lorenzo and Simoncelli then clashed over riding styles at the post-session news conference.

"You said that I had collided with you at Valencia last year. Sorry, but that's a bad example. I was in front of you and it was your tyre that banged into my leg," said Simoncelli.

But Lorenzo said many riders deemed the Italian to be too aggressive.

"Most of the other riders complain about your style. You say that all is fine at the moment, it's not a problem. But if in the future something happens with you, it will be  a problem.

"Don't forget that we put our lives on the line on very powerful machines. We are not riding mini-bikes."

Stoner will start fourth on Sunday with Lorenzo's Yamaha team-mate Ben Spies in fifth.
Multiple former champion Valentino Rossi could only manage ninth on his Ducati.

Lorenzo replaced Simoncelli, who suffered a late crash, at the head of the time sheet four minutes from the end of the hour-long session.

This was his first pole of the season, his 17th in MotoGP and 43rd in all.

The pole position lap time of 1min 37.161sec was just over one tenth of a second faster than his nearest challenger, Simoncelli.

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