The promise of a substantial improvement in the lap times on the new Mugello asphalt was accomplished on the second day of the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM, where Casey Stoner was the main protagonist. The Australian Repsol Honda rider set the fastest lap in history at Mugello with a time of 1'48.034 and claimed his 27th pole position in the MotoGP class.

Stoner set his fast lap 24 minutes before the end of the qualifying session, when rain made an unwelcome appearance and ruined any possibility to better the lap times. Andrea Dovizioso improved his feeling with the front of his RC212V to land fourth on the grid, while Dani Pedrosa starts eighth after improving his time by eight tenths from yesterday.

The weather forecast predicts good weather for tomorrow, but nobody trusts the skies. Regardless, Stoner will be looking for another great result and more points to consolidate his lead in the World Championship. Andrea Dovizioso will do his best to visit the podium again, especially here at his home race, and Dani Pedrosa, who is suffering great pain in his return to racing, will try to make one of his notorious good starts to arrive with the front group from early on.

Casey Stoner:

"After the two sessions yesterday and also in FP3 this morning, we weren't too happy with the set up we had, so we were looking to utilise all of this afternoon's session. However, we made some changes to my second bike, which I made my fastest lap on and we've come out with a fantastic bike. I'm really happy to get pole here especially on a used tyre. The start of qualifying didn't look too good, there was some rain and it was difficult to know how much to push so we went with soft tyres on front and rear to try and get a good lap time before the rain arrived. Once I was on track I realised the rain hadn't affected conditions so much, so I came back in and made a change on the second bike and went back out with a hard front which gave us a little more stability and we managed to go a lot faster. The way the surface is working and everything in general is perfect, even with difficult conditions, we made the right choices at the right time.”

Andrea Dovizioso:

“I’m fairly satisfied with fourth position after the rain created strange track conditions, and I'm happy with our overall pace. Starting from the second row is fine on this track as there is a long straight before turn one. We made some modifications to improve my feeling with the front of the bike and as far as I could tell, they were positive. I wanted to do some laps with hard tyres in preparation for the race as on this track the tyre drops quite quickly, but it wasn’t possible. The race will be long and physically demanding and it won’t be easy to maintain the rhythm for all twenty three laps, but we are ready for this challenge and look forward to fighting for a good result. I’m confident tomorrow the Italian riders will put on a good show for the public here in Mugello!"

Dani Pedrosa:

"I was pretty lucky because the session was only 30 minutes old when the rain arrived and this is good for my injury. I made a few nice laps at the beginning of the session and I'm impressed with my lap time, eighth place on the grid is very good given my physical condition. I know that in the race it will be hard but I will try my best. I'll try the maximum during the 23 laps, 100% in my situation and we will see how much I can achieve. This morning I felt better because I had a good rest last night, but for sure lap by lap the shoulder is getting more and more sore and this afternoon it's been harder. I want to save my energy during the warm up tomorrow morning to try to give the rest in the race."