Marco Simoncelli fresh from a reprimand from the MotoGP race direction for dangerous riding, proved that he was not fazed by the incident by grabbing pole position for the GP of Catalunya at the Circuit De Montmelo in Barcelona. In all of the free practice sessions it was the Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner who was at the top of the time sheets but when it came to crunch Super Sic riding a factory spec Gresini Honda delivered and demoted Stoner on to the second slot on the grid. The works Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies finished in positions three and four respectively while Andrea Dovizioso on the other Repsol Honda rounded out the top five while Valentino Rossi had his best qualifying finishing in seventh place ahead of team mate Nicky Hayden in eighth. Cal Crutchlow on the Tech3 Yamaha finished a creditable sixth on the grid ahead of the factory Ducatis of Rossi and Hayden. Alvaro Bautista qualified the lone Rizla Suzuki in ninth place, an under ten qualification position for the Suzuki for the first time this season and Hector Barbera on the Mapfre Bankia Ducati finished on the 10th place on the grid. Despite a change of chassis, Tony Elias’ misery continued with him qualifying 14th out of fifteen on the LCR Honda and fifteenth position and last was taken by Karel Abraham on the Cardion AB Ducati while twelfth and thirteenth went to the Pramac Ducatis of Randy De Puniet and Loris Capirossi respectively. Eleventh on the grid will be Hiroshi Aoyama, Super Sic’s team mate on the other Gresini Honda. The interesting feature of this race is that all riders start in points scoring positions thanks to the absence of the Repsol Honda of Daniel Pedrosa and the Tech3 Yamaha of Colin Edwards, both of whom are recovering from surgeries to injuries and consequently unfit to race. Sadly this is what MotoGP has come to.