Stoner takes MotoGP pole at Sachsenring after a brutal battle

Rider Casey Stoner has secured MotoGP pole position at the Sachsenring Circuit after official practice sessions full of lively changes at the top.

By Gloria7 July 2012 · 3 min read

The MotoGP World Championship had a very complicated official practice session at the German Grand Prix, as rain was the main story of the day at the Sachsenring Circuit, leaving the premier class riders with a very tricky track, though in the final minutes of the session there were at least 20 changes in pole position.

The start of the session was not very eventful, dominated almost always by one of the Repsol Honda riders or by the local hero, Stefan Bradl, who surprised everyone on his home track; the lap times and pace shown by the 6 with his Honda were incredible.

But the fun came with 10 minutes left in official practice, when all the riders went out to give their all despite the conditions. It was impressive to see how the lap times kept dropping in extreme conditions of rain, aquaplaning and scares. Despite that, we saw Bradl, Pedrosa, Hayden, Crutchlow, Spies and further changes take provisional pole, but in the end it was MotoGP world champion Stoner who delivered the final blow, setting a lap time of 1:31.796, leaving second-placed Spies 0.193s behind and third-placed Pedrosa 0.285s back.

But the gap was extremely tight: we have 7 riders from the premier class within less than 1 second of each other, with Cal Crutchlow 4th at 0.492s and Jorge Lorenzo closing the top 5 at 0.585s.

For its part, the final top 10 went to Stefan Bradl 6th at 0.714s; Hayden 7th at 0.999s, being the last rider within a second of the pole sitter, followed by Andrea Dovizioso 8th, Valentino Rossi 9th and Aleix Espargaró 10th. A great performance for the 41, who was the best CRT and also inside the top 10, so a great session and tomorrow we go all out.

The scares of the session were the crashes, because they were heavy, but luckily none of them had serious physical consequences; everyone was able to return to the track to keep fighting. Among them were Michele Pirro, Danilo Petrucci, Mattia Pasini and Héctor Barberá; all were a bit dazed but got back into action right away. Another peculiar moment was the mechanical problem for Stoner, who with 34 minutes left saw his Honda stop, which did not stop him from giving it gas and taking pole position at the Sachsenring Circuit.

Tomorrow we are in for a heart-stopping race in MotoGP.