MotoGP: Pedrosa claims record pole

Dani Pedrosa took a dominant pole position for the MotoGP race at Barcelona, smashing Casey Stoner's qualifying lap record from 2008 in the process.

The factory Honda rider went seven tenths clear of the field with his best lap on his final run.

His 1m40.893s was nearly 0.3 seconds faster than Stoner's record, which was set when qualifying tyres were still used in MotoGP.

Pedrosa's chasers were able to trim the gap by only another tenth of a second. Jorge Lorenzo briefly stole second place from Cal Crutchlow, but the Briton took it back seconds later.

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Lorenzo's session was not straightforward, as he abandoned his first run with a clutch problem.

After some animated discussions with his Yamaha crew he returned to the track with just enough time to put a run together and get onto the front row for Sunday's race.

Alvaro Bautista was another to shine late in the Q2 session to take fourth, and he will lead the second row of the grid ahead of Nicky Hayden and Marc Marquez.

Valentino Rossi's qualifying struggles continued, and he could only manage the seventh-best time.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 1m40.893s
 2.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m41.501s  +0.608s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                1m41.566s  +0.673s
 4.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         1m41.714s  +0.821s
 5.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                1m41.800s  +0.907s
 6.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 1m41.842s  +0.949s
 7.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                1m41.959s  +1.066s
 8.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         1m41.963s  +1.070s
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                1m42.053s  +1.160s
10.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             1m42.090s  +1.197s
11.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m42.548s  +1.655s
12.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia         1m42.878s  +1.985s
13.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         1m43.186s  +2.293s
14.  Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati         1m43.330s  +2.437s
15.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m43.659s  +2.766s
16.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  1m43.983s  +3.090s
17.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia       1m44.362s  +3.469s
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW        1m44.369s  +3.476s
19.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  1m44.603s  +3.710s
20.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia           1m44.630s  +3.737s
21.  Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia           1m44.913s  +4.020s
22.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda     1m45.441s  +4.548s
23.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW        1m46.302s  +5.409s
24.  Javier del Amor   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m48.952s  +8.059s