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Stoner on pole in record time at Aragon

Australian Casey Stoner will start on pole in Sunday’s Grand Prix of Aragon after topping the times with a new track record in Saturday’s qualifying session.

The Honda rider will be joined on the front row at the Motorland circuit by his team-mate Dani Pedrosa and Yamaha’s American rider Ben Spies.

Sunday’s race is the 14^th leg of the 18-race season, with Stoner leading the overall MotoGP standings by 35 points from defending champion Jorge Lorenzo.

Stoner started from pole last weekend in San Marino, finishing second to Lorenzo.

This is the ninth time he has emerged fastest in qualifying this season, and in setting a time of 1min 48.165sec he lowered by almost half a second the track record he set here 12 months ago.

Lorenzo will start on the second row in company with Italian duo Andrea Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli.

In seventh place came Ducati’s American rider Nicky Hayden, with MotoGP newcomer Karel Abraham of the Czech Republic in eighth, Honda’s Hiroshi Aoyama in ninth and France’s Randy de Puniet in 10^th.

The main loser of the day was Valentino Rossi, who came away unscathed after a crash on his Ducati in the opening 15 minutes of the session to take 13^th.