MotoGP – Misano QP1 – Great pole for Valentino Rossi, Lorenzo 3rd

With a time of 1'34.338 Valentino Rossi took pole position in his home Grand Prix at Misano Adriatico, the fifth of the 2009 season. A great lap rewarded the reigning world champion, who overtook Dani Pedrosa on the front row and Jorge Lorenzo, in second and third position respectively after managing to take the lead in the final moment of qualifying. The two have a gap of 0.222 and 0.470 with the Majorcan unable to make the most of the soft tyre.

Rossi will thus start for the first time in front of Misano (his was a gamble, in fact with 3 minutes and 10 minutes to go to avoid being stuck in traffic he returned to the pits for a very quick tire change, a change which paid off also thanks to the lap exit made very quickly), while in the second row Toni Elias surprises (still without a 2010 bike), fourth ahead of Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden, confirmed as the best Ducati rider on the track (Mika Kallio is only eleventh in his third and perhaps last GP as an official driver).

Seventh is Alex De Angelis, glued to Jorge Lorenzo for a long time in an attempt to exploit his trajectories while only eighth is Andrea Dovizioso making his debut with Ohlins suspension; Loris Capirossi instead manages to bring Suzuki into the top ten with the tenth time despite being 1 seconds behind the leader of the standings. It must be said that the former Ducati rider is already working with the Japanese team in anticipation of 2.

Twelfth is Marco Melandri who has improved compared to the morning tests, not Niccolò Canepa who remains 16th and behind his new teammate Aleix Espargaro, excellent tenth this morning and fifteenth this afternoon. Gabor Talmacsi closes the field as usual on the Team Scot Honda.