MotoGP planet champion Casey Stoner won his 35th profession pole place at the Portugal Grand Prix on a day marred by Colin Edwards breaking his collarbone.

The Australian rode his Honda around the 4.2km Estoril circuit in a qualifying-greatest one minute 37.188 seconds on Saturday for his 1st pole of the season.

Stoner’s teammate Dani Pedrosa, who won the race last year, had the 2nd quickest lap while Cal Crutchlow of Britain was third on a Yamaha.

“In common it’s been a great day for us and I am actually content to get pole,” stated Stoner, fresh from his win in Spain final weekend.

“We made progress on the bike, we had the bike turning nicely with good front feeling.”

Yamaha’s championship leader Jorge Lorenzo will start off Sunday’s race in fourth place and seven-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi will start off from ninth on his Ducati.

The quickest occasions came after the session was temporarily stopped when Randy de Puniet lost manage of his bike and blind-sided Edwards, slinging the American to the ground. De Puniet emerged with an abrasion to his finger.

“I was sorry to see Colin has damaged his collarbone once again and I send him my best wishes,” Stoner said.

Lorenzo leads Stoner by 4 points at the best of the points standings following two races.

“The major dilemma for me these days was that in turn one and two I could not enter aggressively so I lost a lot of time in this segment,” Lorenzo stated.

“In common the bike is not providing me a good feeling so this lap time was the maximum I could get nowadays.”

In the Moto2 class, leader Marc Marquez of Spain will start from pole place right after recording a lap of 1 minute, 40.934 seconds. Thomas Luthi of Switzerland and Britain’s Scott Redding had been up coming.

In Moto3, Sandro Cortese earned his second pole of the season with a best lap of one moment, 47.145 seconds. The German rider was followed by Maverick Vinales of Spain and regional preferred Miguel Oliveira.