Casey Stoner holds pole position for the French Grand Prix - MotoGP News
The Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner was promising as he set the fastest lap time to claim pole position for the fourth round of the 2011 MotoGP World Championship at the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France on May 14.
The Australian was as fast as he was in the free practice sessions. In the qualifiers, two Honda riders Marco Simoncelli and Andrea Dovizioso were able to temporarily get ahead of Stoner. It was not held for long time and shortly Stoner hit back to the top
fast seat in the qualifying. He led the qualifying round for most of the time, by improving a few seconds in each lap.
The French Grand Prix grid will see four Honda’s in the front with a single non-Honda rider, Jorge Lorenzo who will be closing the first five positions at the start. The defending world champion is followed by the Monster Yamaha Tech3 duo Cal Crutchlow and
Colin Edwards in sixth and seventh place respectively.
The first rider to face a fall was Randy de Puniet of Pramac Racing team, in turn 12. The other who had a fall during the qualifying round was Toni Elias of LCR Honda team. Cardion AB Motoracing rider, Karel Abraham also had issues with a front end problem,
while entering a corner at high speed.
The Australian rider, Casey Stoner scored his third pole seat from four rounds of the 2011 season, the Repsol Honda rider gave his best shot of 1: 33.153 seconds and will be starting the race from the first place at the grid, the following rider was from
San Carlo Honda Gresini, Marco Simoncelli on his satellite Honda R212V, the Italian was able to separate the Honda factory rider, leaving Andre Dovizioso in third place.
The third team-mate of the Repsol family Dani Pedrosa was leaning at fourth position on the grid and needed to work hard for the race. The defending world champion, Jorge Lorenzo of Yamaha Factory racing was not as active as expected and secured a fifth
place in the starting grid. The French team riders, Cal Crutchlow and Colin Edwards of Monster Yamaha Tech3 were together at sixth and seventh place.
Lorenzo’s team-mate, Ben Spies fell to eighth place, three positions down than his Spanish team-mate. The Ducati Team riders were leaning far worse, Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden stood at ninth and tenth position, completing the top-ten places for the
French GP grid.
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