Bautista claims maiden MotoGP pole

Alvaro Bautista claimed his maiden MotoGP pole position as rain curtailed British Grand Prix qualifying at Silverstone.

The 27-year-old Spaniard, who is set to start his 37th premier class grand prix on Sunday, hit the front with 15 minutes of the hour remaining as his 2m03.303s lap put him a tenth of a second ahead of Yamaha's Ben Spies.

Spies went out to challenge for pole a few minutes later, but was caught out at the Maggotts/Becketts complex as the rain began to fall and ran off the track, ruining his lap.

Despite the track becoming damp several riders, including Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo, went out in search of improvement. Neither managed to move up the order though, allowing Bautista to give the Gresini Honda squad its first pole since last year's Dutch TT.

Spies took a season's best second place for Yamaha with Honda rider Stoner third and world championship leader Lorenzo fourth.

Dani Pedrosa was fifth for Honda with Pramac Ducati rider Hector Barbera a superb sixth on the best of the Ducatis.

Factory riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi had near identical crashes at the entrance to Club during the session and could do no better than seventh and 10th. They were split by Tech 3 Yamaha rider Andrea Dovizioso and LCR Honda man Stefan Bradl.

Aleix Espargaro was the best of the CRT riders, the Spaniard putting his Aspar Aprilia 11th, a spot ahead of his team-mate Randy de Puniet.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike                 Time      Gap
 1.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda             2m03.303s
 2.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                    2m03.409s  + 0.106s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Honda                     2m03.423s  + 0.120s
 4.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                    2m03.763s  + 0.460s
 5.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda                     2m03.835s  + 0.532s
 6.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati             2m03.876s  + 0.573s
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    2m04.162s  + 0.859s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha             2m04.304s  + 1.001s
 9.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 2m05.035s  + 1.732s
10.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                    2m05.416s  + 2.113s
11.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia             2m06.283s  + 2.980s
12.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia             2m06.303s  + 3.000s
13.  Yonni Hernandez   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki      2m06.814s  + 3.511s
14.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda         2m07.016s  + 3.713s
15.  Colin Edwards     Forward Suter-BMW         2m07.376s  + 4.073s
16.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master Aprilia      2m07.511s  + 4.208s
17.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia         2m08.228s  + 4.925s
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia              2m08.686s  + 5.383s
19.  Ivan Silva        Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki  2m10.092s  + 6.789s