Fiat Yamaha Team rider Jorge Lorenzo made it an incredible three poles from three MotoGP starts with another masterful qualifying display in Portugal this afternoon. Estoril was one of only two circuits on the calendar at which the outstanding rookie had never before claimed a pole position, but he put that behind him in impressive style today to smash the previous record by nearly half a second.

Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha - 1st
Each pole position has felt like a dream and I can't believe I am here again! I am very proud to have a record like this and in fact I'm especially happy to have qualified in front here because this track has always been quite difficult for me and I've never been on pole at it before. Our race pace is quite good and now the aim for tomorrow will be to make the most of my starting position, stay at the front and hopefully fight for the win. It's going to be a hard race and there are many strong riders, but I am looking forward to it. Our aim is to try to win but if that's not possible then the podium will be okay; it's still only my third race and I am still learning all the time! Anyway, I feel good on my bike and tyres, the team have done a great job and now we just have to cross our fingers for good weather tomorrow!

Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Honda - 2nd
Our target was always to start from the front row and we achieved it. We are happy with today's qualifying result, especially because it's very important to start from the front row at this track and because qualifying isn't our strong point at the moment. Our race pace was good today, but we still want to try and improve the bike a little bit more, working on the chassis settings. Also, we haven't chosen which tyres we will use tomorrow because the weather conditions are so changeable here, so we will have wait a bit more. The big question is what the weather will do tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to the race. It will be very important to make a good start, then we will see what we can do from there. I expect it to be very close at the front tomorrow because there's a lot of riders going fast here, for sure it's going to be tough.

Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha - 3rd
I'm really happy! It's very important to be on the first row here and now we can think about trying to win tomorrow. We've made some big steps forward with Bridgestone and considering that every time we use the qualifying tyre it's still a bit like a test, it's a great achievement to be here. Today my bike and tyres worked very well and I felt confident and strong. We have a good setting and I can ride how I want to, which is great fun as well! Now I really hope that we can have a good race tomorrow. The weather is a worry and we will have to wait until last thing to make our final tyre choice, but we have some good ideas. Lorenzo and Pedrosa are looking very strong but I think we are not so far and we have a chance to be there tomorrow. There is a great atmosphere in our box and everyone is looking forward to tomorrow's challenge.

Nicky Hayden - Repsol Honda - 4th
We're right there, but just missing that last little bit. Everything went relatively smooth today, though I definitely thought we were capable of being on the front row - bike, tyres, even the rider - but we just didn't get it done. Race pace I don't think we're a long way off but definitely we could do with a bit more. The Michelin tyres are working good, the bike's good, we just need to get it better in the slow changes of direction. My ideal time had me third. On one of my fast laps I had to follow Toseland, when he wasn't on a fast lap, through turn five and into six, which kinda ruined that lap. At the time I was pretty fired up about it. He was man enough to come and apologise, but at the time I didn't want to hear sorry. It happens though, I'm sure I've got in somebody's way, and I can get over it, it's no big thing. It should be a good race, so long as no one's sandbagging too much this week. Be nice to be on the podium, see what the weather does and see if we can get it done.

Colin Edwards - Yamaha Tech 3 - 5th
My first qualifier was decent and my second and third felt better. But on my last tyre I made a couple of little mistakes and that costs you a lot of time. I was pushing extra hard knowing I'd lost time and just ended up making another mistake trying to claw it back. But I was less than a tenth off the front row and while it would have been good to keep that record going I'm still happy, especially for Yamaha. To have four of us in the top six is how it should be when you don't have chatter, you have a chassis with feel and confidence from the front. And now we've got the new engine too I can't wait for the race. I've gone for a bit of a different tactic with Michelin this weekend for the new motor and thanks to them because it is working. I've gone for outright traction more than momentum to carry lots of corner speed. I'm not so worried about being the fastest guy mid-corner now because it was no good when somebody in front of me was acting like a roadblock. Now I've concentrated on corner entry, getting the bike turned and getting the power to the ground on the exit to use that extra performance from the motor. I'm still doing better lap times with that tyre so it is obviously working.

James Toseland - Yamaha Tech 3 - 6th
I'm a second off pole and still sixth which just shows how fast the boys at the front are going because normally a second covers all of us. I'm really pleased to get on the second row and it is a massive boost for me knowing I can come to a track I've never even seen before and be competitive near the front. Considering the first session was damp, and I crashed at the start of the second session, with the track time I have had a second row start is a great effort from the team. I had a small problem with my first qualifier on the left side but the other two worked really well and thanks to Michelin for that. I just made a few small mistakes because to go two seconds quicker on the qualifying tyres on a track I don't know is a big ask. Everything happens so much faster and I was braking too late and approaching the entry too fast. Against these guys you can't afford to make a mistake. I'm looking forward to the race with the new engine. It is a big improvement and if I had the old engine here,coming off the last corner would have been difficult. It wouldn't have mattered how hard I worked on the rest of the lap, I'd have been passed on the straight. But coming out now in third gear I can feel how much power the new engine has got. Today also showed what a great job Yamaha has done with four of us in the top six.

Andrea Dovizioso - JiR Scot - 7th
Compared to yesterday in both the morning and afternoon sessions we improved the pace for the race and this is positive. Our pace is consistent but we need to do better and this is something that we will do! I know there is a gap up to the riders ahead, but we will make up this ground and tomorrow in the race as usual I will give my maximum. My goal was the second row and that's why I'm not so happy about today's result, so we have to work harder in qualifying. The confidence I have at this track and the familiarity with the layout helps me in any case better understand my RC212V. Of course this bike demands a totally different riding style compared to a 250. I worked with the team to produce some good results today with the electronic management system so that will help us to be competitive. We have a good handling package in the lower part of the track, but you have to have a much more delicate approach to it, thanks to the high-power output of my Honda bike. We may make some final changes to the setting in warm-up tomorrow and then we will be ready for the race.

Randy de Puniet - LCR Honda - 8th
It's been pretty hard today because this morning I crashed and the guys had to work strongly to prepare the bike for this afternoon session. I want to thank them for their great job. By the way my feeling on race tyres in the morning free session was ok both on the front and the rear and I was confident to improve my pace in the qualifying session. We had a minor technical issue and I was not able to get the same rhythm because the bike was spinning to much. I spent more track time to fix the problem but the I am not very satisfied. Anyway we will make some adjustments in tomorrow's warm up session and we will see how the bike will react

Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro - 9th
We were struggling a little bit for confidence coming here after the problems we had at Jerez and even though I was expecting a better performance at this track we've found similar difficulties. We're really struggling for a set-up and I don't think there's much more we can get out of the bike here. Even so, we need to look ahead to the warm-up tomorrow to try and find a better solution in a way that will let me fight in the race. Things went so smoothly for us last year that it would be easy to get frustrated with our current situation but they way out of it is to stay calm and have belief in each other. I know I've got a great team and a great factory behind me, so we'll keep working together until we turn things around. Basically we need to sleep on what's happened over the last two days and head into tomorrow's warm-up in a positive and productive manner.

John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing - 10th
Today we finalised our tyre choice for the race and found a durable combination, so I'm confident we have a good set-up. We will run the new specification chassis we tried for the first time yesterday, as this has given us more traction on a race tyre. The qualifying tyres lacked a bit of grip, and I made a few mistakes, which unfortunately put us on the fourth row. We've given ourselves quite a bit of work to do with the grid position we have but, if I can get a good start, we are capable of a good result.

Shinya Nakano - Gresini Honda - 11th
It was a difficult session because yesterday we were in top form but today things have changed and it was difficult to improve my pace because the bike was unstable. I had some difficulties under braking and acceleration, with a few problems emerging on the front and rear. We have worked on improving the setting but we were still a long way from finding the right balance. With starting from the fourth row tomorrow it will be important to get away well because it is difficult to overtake here. The objective for tomorrow's race is to improve on the ninth place finish at Jerez.

Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki - 12th
We have to think about tomorrow, because for us the qualifying was pretty bad - I tried a bit too hard on my first tyre and I crashed! I am very happy about the race rhythm, we tried to find a good setting and the best tyre for the race and for sure the whole package now seems really good. I am very happy with where we are on race tyres and I will need to get a good start and try to out-brake a few people into the first corner. We worked really hard today and found many good things and we now have to take that into tomorrow. It is not the best thing being so far back on the grid, but I am 100% optimistic for a good result - maybe more so than I was at Jerez!

Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki - 13th
It was a very disappointing qualifying session and again we really struggled to get the extra bit of grip and time out of the qualifying tyres. There didn't seem to be any more grip from the qualifiers than there was from the race tyres! It is quite difficult when the race times are so close because we are now starting so far back that it will all be down to the start and getting away well. I have got quite good tyres for the race, they are a pretty hard compound but they work very well and I can do low 38s, high 37s on them, so hopefully that will be quick enough tomorrow to get me into the front group.

Toni Elias - Alice Ducati - 14th
I can't be happy of the position with have conquered. Fourteenth position isn't our objective. We have to accept the situation, but we can't do worst than this in the classification. This is a track that highlights the problems we have, therefore is not easy. I am not looking at the fact that I am the second best Ducati rider on the starting grid: I prefer to exclusively concentrate on my work to improve. Tomorrow I will give the best possible to gain as many points as I can.

Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing - 15th
I'm frustrated that we were unable to make any more of an impression today and the grid position isn't where I had hoped we would be. We still have a lot of improvements to make in order to obtain the lap times we want and we've been working hard to achieve this. However, tomorrow is race day and I'm determined to get away from the start to fight for as many points as possible.

Alex de Angelis - Gresini Honda - 16th
Considering my physical condition over the last couple of days it was important for me today to spend the whole day out on the bike - in both free practice and qualifying. I feel better now although the session did leave me feeling a bit low because I've never qualified so far back - not in MotoGP or in any other class. We still have work to do but we know that this is a difficult moment for us made worse by my illness. We were left a little behind in terms of finding the right set-up for qualifying today and the race tomorrow. This evening we will look at the telemetry to try and understand where we can improve our pace.

Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Ducati - 17th
This morning we had a good rhythm. Then in the afternoon I slipped after only a few laps and I had to work with the second bike. I lost the rear part of the bike and in the fall I slightly twisted my ankle. Luckily it's nothing serious and some ice should let me be able to ride in tomorrow's race.

Marco Melandri - Marlboro Ducati - 18th
I didn't exactly expect to be running at the front but I was hoping for better than this. I've had problems from the start and so far we've not been able to resolve them. It seems we need more time to change this so the situation remains the same - I can't ride as I want to and I don't have good control of the bike. It is not easy to work out where the problem is coming from and that's why we still haven't worked out how to solve it. It is not time to lie down but to keep working hard for a solution.

2008 Estoril MotoGP Qualifying Times

 1. Lorenzo    Yam YZR-M1 (M) 1:35.715
 2. Pedrosa    Hon RC212V (M) 1:35.948
 3. Rossi      Yam YZR-M1 (B) 1:36.199
 4. Hayden     Hon RC212V (M) 1:36.266
 5. Edwards    Yam YZR-M1 (M) 1:36.289
 6. Toseland   Yam YZR-M1 (M) 1:36.790
 7. Dovizioso  Hon RC212V (M) 1:36.998
 8. de Puniet  Hon RC212V (M) 1:37.223
 9. Stoner     Duc GP08   (B) 1:37.253
10. Hopkins    Kaw ZX-RR  (B) 1:37.346
11. Nakano     Hon RC212V (B) 1:37.664
12. Capirossi  Suz GSV-R  (B) 1:37.786
13. Vermeulen  Suz GSV-R  (B) 1:37.843
14. Elias      Duc GP08   (B) 1:38.561
15. West       Kaw ZX-RR  (B) 1:38.775
16. de Angelis Hon RC212V (B) 1:38.823
17. Melandri   Duc GP08   (B) 1:39.115
18. Guintoli   Duc GP08   (B) 1:39.355