Jorge Lorenzo will start on pole for today’s Portuguese MotoGP after topping the times in qualifying at the Estoril circuit yesterday.

The Yamaha rider secured his fourth consecutive pole at Estoril, at the expense of Italy’s Marco Simoncelli and fellow Spaniard Dani Pedrosa.

Lorenzo, the reigning world champion, lines up on the back of success in his home grand prix in Jerez and a second-place finish behind Casey Stoner in the season-opening race in Qatar.

He leads the overall standings by nine points from Honda’s Pedrosa with another Honda rider, Australian Stoner who failed to finish in Jerez, 22 points back in third.

Stoner will start fourth today with Lorenzo’s Yamaha team-mate Ben Spies in fifth.

Multiple former champion Valentino Rossi could only manage ninth on his Ducati.

Lorenzo replaced Simoncelli, who suffered a late crash, at the head of the time sheet four minutes from the end of the hour-long session.

This was his first pole of the season, his 17th in MotoGP and 43rd in all.

The pole position lap time of 1min 37.161sec was just over one tenth of a second faster than his nearest challenger, Simoncelli.