The Italian took provisional pole in the afternoon qualifying session courtesy of a 1min 45.115secs lap of the Estoril circuit. The Polaris World rider had previously opened the day with the quickest lap in free practice.
Pasini was over three tenths of a second faster than current World Championship leader Gabor Talmacsi, who is in somewhat better condition this week after shaking off the bout of flu that he experienced at Misano. He put himself on the provisional front row alongside team-mate Sergio Gadea and Lukas Pesek in a first four with times differing by nearly a second.
The second row with one of two qualifying sessions completed will also be headed by a Polaris World rider, namely Pasini's team-mate Joan Olive. The Spaniard's countryman Pol Espargaro had a great start to his second appearance at Estoril to complete the top six, ahead of Tomoyoshi Koyama and Raffaele de Rosa.
Title challenger Hector Faubel was amongst those to suffer crashes in the afternoon session, falling victim to a spectacular highside which thankfully left him unharmed.
First qualifying – Estoril:
1. Pasini (Aprilia)
2. Talmacsi (Aprilia) +0.351secs
3. Gadea (Aprilia) +0.382secs
4. Pesek (Derbi) +0.953secs
5. Olive (Aprilia) +0.958secs
6. Espargaro (Aprilia) +0.965secs
7. Koyama (KTM) +1.063secs
8. de Rosa (Aprilia) +1.117secs
9. di Meglio (Honda) +1.140secs
10. Cortese (Aprilia) +1.194secs
19. Smith (Honda) +1.657secs
28. Webb (Honda) +3.082secs
