Lorenzo Takes Japan GP Pole With Record Time

MOTEGI, Japan: Spanish MotoGP rookie Jorge Lorenzo shattered the course record to take pole position here Saturday for the Japanese Grand Prix with championship leader Valentino Rossi fourth.

The 21-year-old Lorenzo clocked the best lap time of 1min 45.543sec in a sun-drenched qualifying session for Sunday’s race on a Michelin-shod Yamaha for his fourth pole position of the season.

He clipped the old course record of 1:45.724 set by Italian Loris Capirossi in qualifying for the 2006 Grand Prix when the premier class used up-to-990cc machines before the MotoGP limit was lowered to the current 800cc.

The time also bettered by 0.321 seconds the best 800cc Japanese GP qualifying time recorded by countryman Dani Pedrosa on a Honda last year.

Defending world champion and Ducati ace Casey Stoner of Australia posted the second best time of 1:45.831 on the 4.8-kilometre (three-mile) stop-and-go Motegi track, ahead of American Honda rider Nicky Hayden at 1:45.971.

Italian ace Rossi was fourth fastest at 1:46.060 to stay in the hunt for his sixth premier-class world title.

The 29-year-old Rossi only needs to finish third here — even if his nearest rival in the championship Stoner wins the race for 25 GP points — to take the world title, his first in three years.

Rossi, Lorenzo’s senior Yamaha teammate who has switched his rubber to Bridgestone from Michelin at the start of the season, is cushioned by a 87-point lead with four races to go in the season.

Stoner, 22, hampered in recent races by fresh damage to his left wrist which was injured in 2003, has clinched four races so far this season but missed the podium in the last three GPs.

Rossi chalked his fourth straight win, and seventh of the season, in a storm-shortened Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Speedway two weeks ago.