Czech GP: Bridgestone qualifying report

Stoner takes sixth straight pole and leads Bridgestone top six Ducati's Casey Stoner has claimed a sensational sixth consecutive pole position in this afternoon's wet qualifying session at the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic, taking the top ...

Stoner takes sixth straight pole and leads Bridgestone top six

Ducati's Casey Stoner has claimed a sensational sixth consecutive pole position in this afternoon's wet qualifying session at the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic, taking the top spot by a margin of almost 1.2 seconds. It is the seventh Bridgestone-shod pole this season, the most ever in a single season by riders using Bridgestone tyres, beating the previous best of six which was achieved in 2006 and 2007.

Stoner leads an all-Bridgestone front and second row, which features riders from five different teams and manufacturers, with Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi and Kawasaki's John Hopkins joining him on the front row for tomorrow's 22-lap race. After missing three races through injury, it is a welcome return for Hopkins, and marks his first front row since China 2007. It is Kawasaki's first front row result of the year on a successful Saturday for the team which has seen Anthony West take his best qualifying result of the season in sixth place.

Ahead of West on the second row is Rizla Suzuki MotoGP's Chris Vermeulen in fourth and San Carlo Honda Gresini rider Alex De Angelis who has also taken his best grid slot of the year in fifth. His team-mate Shinya Nakano was classified eighth, one of an additional three Bridgestone-shod riders in the top ten, including Suzuki's Loris Capirossi in ninth and Alice Team's Sylvain Guintoli in tenth.

Tohru Ubukata - Bridgestone Motorsport - Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development

What are your thoughts on today's wet qualifying session?

"Naturally, we are very pleased with the qualifying results today and the performance of our wet weather tyres during the course of the day. This top six is our best ever qualifying result and there were some very pleasing individual results with our riders, especially Casey who has taken his sixth pole position in a row after another impressive session. It is a pleasure to see John back on the front row, while Alex, Anthony and Shinya have also taken their best grid positions of the season in a very difficult wet session."

How has the rain affected Bridgestone's preparations for the race?

"We have not had any dry track timetoday which has not really put us an ideal situation for the race because our priority today was to look at the behaviour of our slick tyres over long runs. We know from yesterday that our slick tyres have good initial performance at this resurfaced track, but will only know in the race how the tyres will be over the complete race distance. Hopefully we will have a fully dry day tomorrow which will also give us the warm-up session to make final adjustments together with our teams."