Careening in and out of the five left hand turns and eight rand hand turns and down the 650-meter front straight on his qualifying lap for the 2007 Gran Premio Bwin.com De La Comunitat Valeciana, Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa ultimately found himself the fastest rider on the day, and in being so, won the pole for the final MotoGP of the 2007 World Championships season. Interestingly — and as a testament to his amazing form as of late — it was the Spaniard’s fourth consecutive pole position. As a footnote, Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner was second in qualifying to Pedrosa by less than a tenth of a second, but as an added bonus to his 2007 World Championship, Casey was awarded the BMW M Award for being fast qualifier at the most 2007 MotoGP races. Qualifying in Valencia was a bad experience for Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi who got off hard in the way of a nasty high side, the crash reportedly breaking the Italian’s wrist. If Rossi can’t race on Sunday, and Pedrosa were to win, the Spaniard would snag second from Rossi in the final point standings (Note: Pedosa is 24 points behind the Italian). Third in qualifying in Spain with a lap of 1:31.903 was American Nicky Hayden.

“Luckily, I got some good guys around me and good team over there,” said Hayden, who struggled in practice and qualifying before finally getting it all right. “We’ll have to definitely try something huge tomorrow. But being on the front is a big advantage, so I know these guys are going to make it tough. But we’ll come in here tomorrow, definitely, and see what happens.

“Race day’s always a different story. Anything can happen. We’ll just try to stick our nose in there and be able to put a bid in and try to finish off the year really good. So, see what happens. I’m pretty excited about the race. I wish I was quicker on race tires. See what happens when that light goes out.” Stoner, meanwhile, was stoked with his Ducati Desmosedici GP7 and how it performed on the short, sinuous Valencia circuit.

“We’re just still trying to get a bit better lap time towards the end of it, just to make sure we’re competitive at the end of the race,” he offered. “But, so far, the weekend’s gone quite well for us. We seem to miss out on that pole position by a few hundredths quite often this year. But I’m pretty happy again. We’re on the front row and we have been concentrating hard on the setting.”

Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet qualified fourth fastest, followed by Yamaha Tech 3 teammates Sylvain Guintoli and Makoto Tamada. Rizla Suzuki’s John Hopkins will hold the point on row three come Sunday with Marlboro Ducati’s Loris Capirossi beside him. Honda LCR’s Carlos Checa will start his final MotoGP next to Capirossi.