Stoner on Misano pole

Casey Stoner did his hopes of retaining the world championship no harm as he sits on pole position for today's Grand Prix.

Casey Stoner will start from pole position for today's San Marino MotoGP race in Misano.

Casey Stoner did his hopes of retaining his world championship no harm as he roared to pole position for today's San Marino Grand Prix in Misano. The Australian rider, who trails the title leader Valentino Rossi by 50 points, needs a win badly to close the gap on the Italian and give himself a chance of overhauling him in the season's climax.

The Ducati rider clinched his seventh pole of the year with a lap of 1min 33.378secs around the twisting Italian circuit. Having crashed out while leading at the last race in the Czech Republic earlier this month, his strong qualifying performance was just the tonic that the Australian needed. His effort was even more impressive after he had suffered a fracture to his hand following a crash in one of Friday's practice sessions.

The injury did not seem to cause him problems in qualifying, and Stoner is confident that it will not be a problem for the race. "Hopefully it will be OK. We have been strapping it up. It's not too bad," he said. Rossi's Yamaha was unable to keep up with Stoner in the hot conditions, and he was half-a-second adrift of his rival. But the Italian added that he was content with his starting position and the work that he and the Japanese team had achieved.

"I'm happy about our work because we did a good job with the qualifying tyres this afternoon and we were able to improve with each one, which is very important," he said. "In the end we couldn't match Casey's time but anyway second on the grid is good for the race." Rossi edged out his teammate Jorge Lorenzo by a fraction of a second, leaving the Spaniard to start third. The Honda rider Randy de Puniet of France is fourth on the grid, while Toni Elias qualified fifth on his Ducati.

Honda's Dani Pedrosa, who is third in the standings with 172 points, completes the second row of the grid. The Australian rider Chris Vermeulen is seventh on his Suzuki, ahead of the Honda bike of Japanese racer Shinya Nakano. Britain's James Toseland was more than a second off Stoner's pace as he qualified in ninth place, although he does start ahead of his Yamaha teammate Colin Edwards, who starts tenth.

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