Front row for Stoner

From Marlboro Ducati

Casey Stoner was involved in a three-way battle for pole position at Le Mans Saturday afternoon, with a trio of riders dipping under the 1:33 mark at the legendary French circuit to lock out the front row of the grid.

The reigning World Champion found a good race set-up for his Ducati and converted that pace to a qualifying tire, setting a stunning final lap of 1:32.994 to make a late challenge for the front spot on the grid, winding up third.

However, the flip side of the coin for the team this weekend has been that Marco Melandri has been unable to pick up from the progress he made at the last round in China and he struggled again in qualifying, giving him another uphill task in Sunday's race from 17th on the grid after recording a 1:35.081.

"Basically I made a mistake towards the end of my best lap and I think it cost me pole position, so I have to accept responsibility for that," Stoner said. "The team have done a great job to get the bike working around this circuit on race tires and we've been fast all weekend. Bridgestone have also been working hard on their qualifying tires and they gave us something really good today so it was a shame we couldn't translate that into another pole for them."