World championship leader Dani Pedrosa overcame sweltering track temperatures to claim pole in a track record time for Sunday's Catalan MotoGP.
Repsol Honda Team's Spanish rider Dani Pedrosa takes part in the third MotoGP free practice of the Catalunya Grand Prix in Montmelo, near Barcelona, on June 15, 2013. The world championship leader claimed pole on home soil as he qualified fastest for the race.
The 27-year-old, who hails from Sabadell, barely a half hour's drive from the Montmelo track, set the fastest ever lap at Montmelo with a ride of 1min 40.893 secs, more than half a second ahead of Britain's Cal Crutchlow in second and defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo in third.
"I have broken the record and I am very happy, although the objective was just to be on the front row," Pedrosa told reporters afterwards.
"I had great feelings and I have gone out with a great lap. I am happier with the performance in the rhythm of the race, we have been able to do a lot of laps and this is important."
Pedrosa, who leads Lorenzo by 12 points in the championship standings after five races, broke Casey Stoner's previous lap record of 1min 41.186 secs from 2008 midway through the afternoon's second qualifying session and was never threatened by the chasing pack, although there was a lot of late movement behind him in the dying seconds of the session.
Lorenzo had endured a torrid day as he crashed in free practice on Saturday morning before having to change bikes due to a clutch problem early on in the qualifying session.
However, the two-time winner at Montmelo managed to move briefly into second with his final lap of the day before Crutchlow also posted his best time of the afternoon right at the end of the session to leapfrog Lorenzo and ensure he will split the Spanish championship rivals on the front row of the grid.
"I'm very disappointed because today we had a problem with the clutch in a crucial moment and this lap time was the best I could do," Lorenzo told Yamaha Factory Racing's website.
"I also had not so much confidence on the front to make a perfect lap. We hope race distance we can remain constant and fight for the win.
"We will need to be strong and concentrate for the whole race; we don't know what can happen in the 20th lap."
There was also disappointment for one of the other title contenders 20-year-old Marc Marquez as after being fastest in Saturday morning's practice session he could only manage sixth behind American Nicky Hayden.
Six-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi's frustrating campaign also continued as after setting the pace in Friday's practice sessions, he qualified over a second down on Pedrosa's time and will start in seventh.
"We tried everything but I still don't have the maximum feeling to improve a bit more," he lamented afterwards.
Meanwhile, there was also home success in the Moto2 and Moto3 qualifying sessions as Pol Espargaro and Luis Salom made it a Spanish treble on pole.
Espargaro edged out championship leader Scott Reading by sixth tenths of a second and the Briton will be joined by another Spaniard on the front row as Esteve Rabat took third.
In the Moto3 session Salom took pole ahead of his compatriot and championship rival Alex Rins with Portugal's Miguel Oliveira in third and championship leader Maverick Vinales back in fifth.