Today’s qualifying session at Indianapolis saw Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa take the top spot with a smashing 1.39.730s on hard race tires and beating Valentino Rossi’s last year’s pole position on super soft qualifying tires by more than a second.

Jorge Lorenzo was able to grab the provisional pole before Pedrosa set out in a series of impressive runs, but closed his qualifying session 0.506s from the Honda rider.

Much worse went Valentino Rossi who seemed to have trouble with his Ohlins set-up, managed to get third on the grid in the dying seconds of qualifying, a massive 0.879s behind Pedrosa. Rossi’s late lap pushed Alex de Angelis to fourth by just 0.011s.

Colin Edwards crashed out with less that ten minutes to go, but was able to retain his fifth place 0.106sec from Ducati’s Nicky Hayden who will round out row two with his sixth place.

Toni Elias also crashed out in the final minutes of the session and he too was able to keep his seventh place. Eighth was Andrea Dovizioso who low sided early in the session after losing his front.

Marco Melandri will be starting in ninth position, while James Toseland closes the top ten.

Loris Capirossi closed his best time in eleventh place, followed by Randy de Puniet, Niccolò Canepa and Chris Vermeulen.

Mika Kallio also crashed out in the final minutes and will be starting on the grid in 15th place, while Aleix Espargaro, who is making his MotoGP debut this weekend and has just three hours of practice on the Ducati finished in front of Gabor Talmacsi who closed the grid in 17th.

MotoGP Indianapolis Qualifying:

1 Dani Pedrosa 1:39.730
2 Jorge Lorenzo 1:40.236
3 Valentino Rossi 1:40.609
4 Alex De Angelis 1:40.620
5 Colin Edwards 1:40.961
6 Nicky Hayden 1:41.067
7 Tony Elias 1:41.283
8 Andrea Dovizioso 1:41.309
9 Marco Melandri 1:41.530
10 James Toseland 1:41.620
11 Loris Capirossi 1:41.742
12 Randy De Puniet 1:41.773
13 Niccolo Canepa 1:41.910
14 Chris Vermeulen 1:42.038
15 Mika Kallio 1:42.250
16 Alex Espargaro 1:42.577
17 Gabor Talmacsi 1:42.736

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