German MotoGP: Casey Stoner disappointed to miss pole

Casey Stoner admitted he was disappointed having just been thwarted in his bid to secure a first MotoGP pole position since the opening race in Qatar today.

The 24-year-old looked on course to deny Jorge Lorenzo a fourth straight pole position with a brilliant late attack.

The 2007 world champion was faster than Lorenzo through the second and third splits on his final flying lap but lost crucial time when he quickly caught Colin Edwards on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1.

Stoner was unable to negotiate his way by the veteran American and at the end he was only 0.024s away from Lorenzo.

The factory Ducati rider ended with a best time of 1.21.841 and said: “I’m definitely disappointed because this weekend has been going very well for us. In general this weekend I’ve been competitive and running good times even though I’d like to do them a bit easier.

“Personally I think we should have been on pole but I didn’t time my lap well enough.

“I got caught up behind Colin Edwards in the penultimate corner and lost some vital time. I was a little bit disappointed not to get pole by such a small margin but maybe I should have attempted to pass him earlier and things might have been different.

“I tried on the last lap but I lost the front a bit and it was game over for me but a front row is important.”

Stoner was using a new fairing on his GP10 machine today and he said he’d race the new aerodynamics package in tomorrow’s 30-lap clash.

The fairing features small wings on each side and is designed to help prevent wheelies while also aiding turning stability in fast corners.

Stoner said: “We’ll stay with this new fairing. We felt some difference at a higher speed but to be honest this is a slower track and maybe the difference won’t feel as drastic as a faster one. We need more time to understand it.

“We feel in the faster corners we had some positive feeling but in the slower corners we didn’t find any difference.”