Jorge Lorenzo disappointed to miss pole position

Jorge Lorenzo admitted he was disappointed not to have claimed his fifth pole position of the season in Australia today.

The Spaniard was pipped to pole by home favourite Casey Stoner as he missed out by just 0.069s to qualify as fastest Michelin rider.

Lorenzo, who has won the last 250GP races in Phillip Island, logged a best time of 1.28.734 on his last flying lap, but Stoner pulled off the fastest ever lap of the spectacular Aussie circuit on two wheels to deny him.

Lorenzo said:  “I really wanted that pole position. I did a good lap but then the little kangaroo came and he took away my possibility. It is going to be a difficult race with Casey being so fast. But anyway we have our own chances and we will try and take profit of this. I think we can manage to stay close in the first few laps. I will try and fight, Maybe Casey will get crazy and he will go away but I will try and remain as close as possible.”

Stoner hardly looked too enamoured with Lorenzo’s reference to him as a ‘little kangaroo’, but the 21-year-old added: “I’ve been fairly consistent throughout the sessions here and we made another step this morning which allowed me to be quite fast this afternoon.

“The weather was more complicated than it looked because the wind was very strong, but anyway my bike worked very well. I am really looking forward to it. Yesterday we tried some practice starts, because this has been an issue for me lately, so now I hope I can get a good start tomorrow, stay at the front and try to fight.”