Stoner starts from pole after claiming it on his 25th birthday.

• Casey Stoner starts from pole for the third time this year. Stoner will be aiming to win his home Grand Prix for the fourth successive year. This is Stoner’s 25th pole across all classes, achieved on his 25th birthday.

• New world champion Jorge Lorenzo will start from second place on the grid, which is the fifteenth time this year he has been on the front row. This will be Lorenzo’s 50th start in the MotoGP class.

• Ben Spies returns to the front row for the first time since he qualified on pole at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.

• Heading up the second row of the grid as the fastest Honda rider in qualifying is Marco Simoncelli, who starts from his best grid position since moving up to the MotoGP class for 2010. Simoncelli has won the 250cc race at Phillip Island for the last two years.

• Fifth fastest qualifier is Colin Edwards, who has equalled his best grid position of this year that he also had at Motegi and Mugello.

• Sixth on the grid, Nicky Hayden still holds the lap record at Phillip Island; set on the way to finishing third in 2008.

• Heading the third row of the grid is Randy de Puniet, who will be aiming to improve on his previous best MotoGP result at Phillip Island: sixth place in 2007 riding a Kawasaki.

• Valentino Rossi is the eighth fastest qualifier, which is his worst grid position since he was tenth on the grid at the Valencia Grand Prix in 2008. Following his win at Sepang, Rossi will be aiming for back-to-back wins for the first time since the Catalan GP and Dutch TT last year.

• If any of the four Yamaha riders win the race, it will be the first win for Yamaha at Phillip Island during the 800cc era of MotoGP.

• Andrea Dovizioso is ninth on the grid, which equals his lowest qualifying position of the year, which he had at the Spanish GP.

• Alex de Angelis is on pole for the first time since he was fastest qualifier in the 250cc class at the British Grand Prix in 2007.

MOTO2:

• Scott Redding starts from second place on the grid for the fourth time in 2010. Redding will be aiming to become the youngest ever rider to win an intermediate-class Grand Prix, to add to his record of being the youngest ever rider to win a 125cc GP race.

• Stefan Bradl is third on the grid, equalling his previous best qualifying of the year he had at Qatar and Silverstone. Bradl’s second place finish in the 125cc race at Phillip Island in 2008 is the last time he stood on a GP podium.

• On the outside of the front row is Mike di Meglio; a great improvement on his previous best qualifying in 2010 which was 13th at the opening race of the year in Qatar.

• Raffaele de Rosa, who is in eighth place on the grid, finished third in the 250cc race last year in Australia – his first Grand Prix podium finish.

125cc GP:

• Spanish riders have won the last twenty-four 125cc races. The last non-Spanish winner in the 125cc class was Andrea Iannone at the Catalan Grand Prix last year.

• Marc Marquez starts from pole for the eleventh time in 2010. This extends the record for the most poles in a single season in the 125cc class which Marquez set one week ago in Malaysia. Marquez has finished ninth on both of his previous appearances at the Australian Grand Prix.

• Marquez is going for his ninth win of 2010 which would equal the most wins in a single season in the 125cc class by a Spanish rider, a record set in 1988 by Jorge Martinez.

• Sandro Cortese has qualified on the front row for the seventh time in 2010. Cortese set the fastest lap of the 125cc GP race last year in Australia on his way to finishing third.

• Third on the grid is Pol Espargaro, his twelfth front row start of 2010. Espargaro has finished in the top four twelve times in the first fourteen races of the year.

• The final qualifier on the first row is Nico Terol, who has already finished on the podium eleven times in 2010.

• Bradley Smith, who heads the second row of the grid, finished second at Phillip Island last year behind the world champion Julian Simon.