Phillip Island : 250cc final qualifyingJorge Lorenzo (Fortuna Aprilia) edged closer to defending his 250cc crown by taking pole at the GMC Australian Grand Prix on Saturday at Phillip Island, while his title rivals Alex de Angelis (Master - Mapfre Aspar) and Andrea Dovizioso
(Kopron Team Scot) could only manage to secure fourth and seventh grid places respectively.
Lorenzo earned his ninth pole start of the year with a time of 1'32.884s on the 21st of 22 laps of the Australian circuit, putting him 0.886s ahead of nearest challenger Hector Barbera (Team Toth) who qualified second, before suffering a high speed crash at the end of the session which he was lucky to walk away from relatively unscathed.
A top three of Spanish Aprilia riders was completed by Alvaro Bautista (Master Mapfre Aspar) who was 0.936s slower than Lorenzo and just 0.004s faster than team-mate De Angelis – who rounded off an Aprilia dominated front row.
Marco Simoncelli (Metis Gilera) just missed out on the front row, with his best lap being 0.030s slower than that of De Angelis, meaning the Italian heads a second row which also features Hiroshi Aoyama (Red Bull KTM), Dovizioso and Thomsa Lüthi (Emmi Caffe Latte Aprilia).
Repsol Honda's Julian Simon and Shuhei Aoyama meanwhile were ninth and tenth respectively.
DORNA / CAPSIS International
