Indianapolis MotoGP: Rossi takes pole

Valentino Rossi pushed aside all concerns over the new Indianapolis MotoGP track to take an impressive pole position for sunday’s race.

The torrential rain conditions from Friday blew away leaving the lap times to tumble. Toni Elias, who topped the first day, started out well dominating the top of the time sheets for the first 40 minutes but when the big guns came out in the closing stages the Ducati rider couldn’t keep up the pace.

Instead it was left to Valentino Rossi to take control in the closing stages of the session, taking the top spot with 7 minutes to go then knocking off a further quarter of a second on his final lap.

Nicky Hayden sat on pole for all of 10 seconds before Rossi set his first hot lap but was eventually relegated to fourth position on tomorrows grid as both Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo put in faster times to take the final positions on the front row.

Suzuki wild-card Ben Spies impressed today putting in some very quick laps to take fifth on the grid, but he is the only rider on the track to have ridden the circuit before .

Randy DePuniet also put in a good show, constantly hovering around the top of the table and eventually taking the sixth fastest lap ahead of Andrea Dovisioso and Danny Pedrosa, who is still getting to grips with his new Bridgestone tyres.

Toni Elias was eventually left to head up the fourth row coming in ahead of James Toseland and Colin Edwards.