World champion Casey Stoner will start on pole in Sunday's Catalunya motorcycling Grand Prix after the Honda rider posted the quickest time in qualifying at the Montmelo circuit Saturday. The Australian picked up the 40th pole of his career by edging Spain's Jorge Lorenzo by 0.146sec with Lorenzo's Yamaha teammate, Briton Cal Crutchlow, in third, at 0.253. Stoner is bidding to win here for the second year in a row in a season which will be his last in MotoGP after announcing his shock decision to retire at the French MotoGP last month. He set his pole-securing lap time of 1min 41.295 eight minutes from the end of the session. Behind Stoner and Lorenzo the battle was on for third place with Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Andrea Dovizioso holding the final front row starting position ahead of his teammate Cal Crutchlow and Yamaha's Ben Spies while Dani Pedrosa had a slow start on the hard tyres, down in sixth place. With several riders running off at either Turn 1 or Turn 2, Yonny Hernandez had the biggest off when he lost it at Turn 4 20 minutes in. With 20 minutes remaining in the qualifying hour, Dovizioso was the first to blink, putting on the soft tires. He took the P1 slot by 0.007s ahead of Stoner before Crutchlow overhauled him by 0.009s. The top three were separated by 0.016s.
