Hayden pips Stoner to Portuguese pole

World champion Nicky Hayden clinched his first pole position of the season by edging ahead of championship leader Casey Stoner in the final qualifying round for the Portuguese MotoGP yesterday. Hayden steered his Honda around the 4,182-metre Estoril...

World champion Nicky Hayden clinched his first pole position of the season by edging ahead of championship leader Casey Stoner in the final qualifying round for the Portuguese MotoGP yesterday.

Hayden steered his Honda around the 4,182-metre Estoril track in one minute 36.301 seconds, at an average speed of 156.334kph.

Stoner, who dominated the first three practice sessions, was second quickest, 0.4 seconds behind Hayden.

Italian Valentino Rossi, five times MotoGP champion, completed the front row on a Yamaha in 1:36.576

Ducati's Stoner is 85 points clear of Rossi with five races remaining, meaning that the 21-year-old needs to score 15 points more than Rossi to be crowned at Estoril.

If he does that, he will become the first Australian champion since Mick Doohan's fifth and final success in 1998.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.