Dani Pedrosa was on form at Motegi, edging out Valentino Rossi and teammate Nicky Hayden for his second pole of the season. All three on the first row are Michelin riders. Rounding out the second row are de Puniet, Elias and West - a strong showing for Kawasaki Racing. Points leader Casey Stoner qualified in 9th position and needs to finish higher than Rossi to capture the title at Motegi.

Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Honda
I'm very happy to be on pole position and it's been a little while since I've been on the front row so today went very well for us, all in all," began Dani. "We'll have to look at the weather for tomorrow to make our final selection of race tyre, but I think we're looking pretty good, and hopefully the endurance will be there too because we've tested for that by putting in a lot of laps on the same tyre. We're in a good position for the race, but anything can happen. The weather is looking like it will change and we've seen first corner incidents at this circuit before. I hope we get through the first corner cleanly and have a good race at Honda's home track.

Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha
I'm in good shape and I'm very happy with this result after the problems we had yesterday. We were struggling a lot but everyone has worked very hard and today has been much, much better. We tried some modifications and now I can use the throttle well and the grip from the tyres is good. In fact today the tyre situation is really a lot better and I can use my M1 how I want to, with a good rhythm. This morning especially was a big improvement although this afternoon we tried some different things again and it wasn't quite so good to start with. Pedrosa's rhythm is slightly better than mine at the moment so we have one or two things to work on, but we're definitely in a good position and we are starting from the front row, which is the most important factor. I was very happy with the qualifying tyres because I was able to do two laps with the second one. Michelin brought a new tyre and asked that I try for a second lap and it worked well, so this is very encouraging. Now I am really looking forward to the race; it's going to be hard in this heat but we will do our best and see what happens.

Nicky Hayden - Repsol Honda
I definitely have to say thanks to the team because we made quite a lot of progress straight away this morning and I felt a lot more comfortable on the bike," said the world champion. "I'm not completely thrilled with my second qualifying lap though. My first two splits were quite good but then I made a little mistake and in the last part of the lap I didn't put it together clean enough. I really didn't improve my time from my first qualifier to my second one and with these boys that won't cut it. Nevertheless I'm happy to be on the front row - that's four in a row - and the bike, tyres and everything is working pretty well. This afternoon I was able to put in some decent laps on a used race tyre so I'm excited for the race.

Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro
Today we couldn't get a good feeling with the bike, no matter what we did. I was frustrated because I think we could have improved my time with my second qualifying run but the change we'd made to the setting made braking difficult, so when I came into the last chicane the bike wouldn't go back a gear, so I destroyed the last corner and lost more than half a second. The tyres weren't so bad and to be honest the setting we had this morning was quite good, but as soon as we started the afternoon session that setting didn't seem to work, so we struggled to find a solution. We know we have to improve a little bit more and I think we will try another direction during warm-up. If we can improve a bit in the morning, starting from the third row shouldn't be a big problem. Normally we get goods start and with a few passes we can get to the front.

Qualifying Results: