An impressive performance at Assen on Friday saw
Valentino Rossi come unexpectedly close to ending
Casey Stoner's run of
MotoGP dominance, although the Italian was eventually forced to settle for third place on the Dutch TT grid.
Stoner, dominant since the start of last weekend's British Grand Prix, held a half second cushion heading into the final five minutes of the hour - when Rossi suddenly snatched pole away from him.
The reigning world champion responded, but Rossi looked to be in with a chance of pole on his final flying lap, until a small problem in the last sector lost him his advantage.
Second place behind Stoner at least looked secure - until a last-minute dash from Pedrosa relegated the world championship leader to the outside of the front row.
Rossi, who beat Stoner from eleventh on the grid one year ago, is encouraged to have closed the gap to the Australian - who sits 45 points behind Rossi in the title fight - but the speed of Pedrosa, just eleven points behind Rossi in the standings, could be a cause for concern.
"Like always, the front row is our target and so we are happy with this third position. Anyway it's better than last year, when I was 11th!" smiled Rossi. "We made some small modifications with the qualifying tyre and today everything seemed to work very well.
"Now we hope that it will translate to the race tyre, although of course we have to wait and see what the weather is like before we can make a choice, things change so quickly here! I was able to try for pole and I thought it was possible on the last lap, but unfortunately I had a small problem with the last tyre.
"Today we were all very close, closer than yesterday, but I think we still need to improve a bit more if we're going to be sure to be able to fight with Casey, so we will try to finalise things tomorrow morning," he added.
"It's clear that Stoner is very strong again, but we will be hoping to be able to go with him," underlined team manager Davide Brivio.
