MotoGP World Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo continued to tighten his grip on top spot by taking pole position for Saturday’s TIM TT Assen, having topped both free practice sessions in the lead up to qualifying.

The Fiat Yamaha rider secured his second consecutive pole with a best lap of 1:34.515, taking over two-tenths off his best time from the two free sessions. Having won last time out at Silverstone, Lorenzo will hope to repeat the feat in the Netherlands and extend his lead in the championship, which currently stands at 37 points.

“I’m very happy to take my second pole of the season but I feel even more comfortable and confident because I’ve been first in all three practice sessions, despite the other riders pushing hard during qualifying,” Lorenzo commented.

“I think tomorrow’s race could be interesting and of course I want to try to win, but as always the main goal is to finish and take points. I will try to escape but if I can’t I will fight for the podium. We can afford to be very calm because of our lead in the standings but the team and I are still working as hard as we can to keep going at this level; we’re not relaxing.”

France’s Randy de Puniet became the second rider of the weekend to get under 1:35 when he briefly took the lead in the session with 20 minutes remaining, and the LCR Honda rider will start from second position on the grid for the second straight race after a fantastic lap which left him 0.282s off Lorenzo’s pace.

“Everything is going in the right direction for us and we completely deserved this second consecutive front row,” de Puniet said. “I am still the Honda fastest rider and the top privateer rider in the classification, so this is not just luck!

“We have got the pace to run in top five on race tyres, but we need to confirm our mapping for the end of the race when the tyres will drop. Want to thank everybody in the team for their great job.”

Ducati rider Casey Stoner put in a last lap of 1:34.803 – just six-thousandths behind De Puniet – to ensure he will start his bid for a first podium of the season from the front row. The Australian was followed by rookie Ben Spies as the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider continued to impress, setting the fourth fastest time to ensure he will start from the second row after his first podium finish last time out.

“The last set-up we threw in the bike seemed to make quite an improvement,” Stoner commented. “This morning we were pretty happy with it but this afternoon we never really reached where we wanted to. We had a small problem with the clutch – we had some air in the hydraulics and it wasn’t working properly so I had to use the full pump of the clutch just to shift back through the gears.

“I got one qualifying lap in and went to start my second but the bike sounded like it backfired and so I decided to call it quits – it was better to be safe than sorry and to start the race tomorrow fresh. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the race but if we will be able to make some more little steps in the tomorrow’s warm-up we may be not too far off.”

Joining the American in taking over half-a-second off his best time of the weekend was Nicky Hayden, as the Ducati man registered the fifth best time and was the final rider under 1’35”. Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso will complete the second row after clocking in just 0.016s further back. His team-mate Dani Pedrosa was seventh in the order and will start from the third row.

Completing the top ten for the session were Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team), Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech3) and Aleix Espargaró (Pramac Racing).

Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) was absent after his earlier crash in the second free practice session, when a highside resulted in a dislocated shoulder that prevented his participation in this afternoon’s qualifying, and most likely tomorrow’s race as well.

Andrea Iannone will start the Moto2 race in pole position after dominating every session so far this weekend and then claiming the fast lap in qualifying. The Fimmco Speed Up rider, who secured victory at Mugello from pole in round four, set a best of 1:39.092.

Second in the session was Ratthapark Wilairot, whose 16th and final lap of the session pushed him to within 0.215s of Iannone and gave the Thai Honda PTT Singha-SAG his best ever starting grid position. However the Thai rider was punished later for “riding in an irresponsible manner” when Alex Debón collided with him off the racing line, and was fined €3,000 by Race Direction.

Debón (Aeroport de Castelló-Ajo) was also on the provisional front row after setting his best time on only his third lap, although that proved to be his final lap of the circuit as the Spaniard smashed into Wilairot. The crash resulted in a suspected fractured right collarbone, an injury which has placed his participation in the race in doubt.

Technomag-CIP rider Shoya Tomizawa completed the front row with the fourth fastest time of the session.

Just seven-thousandths behind Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Racing) was fifth fastest, with Championship leader Toni Elías (Gresini Racing Moto2), Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar) and Fonsi Nieto (G22 Holiday Gym) completing the top eight. Forward Racing pair Claudio Corti and Jules Cluzel were ninth and tenth.

Other crashers included Gabor Talmacsi , who went down at Turn 6 with just over 23 minutes of the session remaining. The Hungarian’s fall resulted in the red flag being brought out while the track was cleared, and he escaped uninjured.

Axel Pons (Tenerife 40 Pons) went down towards the end of the session and suffered a fracture to the radius in his right arm, and will not ride in tomorrow’s race. Simone Corsi (JiR Moto2) was the final faller and was uninjured.

Marc Márquez will go for his third straight victory from pole position in the 125cc class on Saturday after setting a scorching pace in qualifying. The Red Bull Ajo Motorsport rider’s lap of 1:42.191 was well clear of second placed Bradley Smith, who was 0.584s further back.

Márquez took top spot on the timesheets with eight minutes to go, setting the fastest lap of the weekend, but unsatisfied with that he then shaved further time off his own effort to send a resounding message to the rest of the field. Bancaja Aspar rider Smith’s 20th and final lap of the session delivered him second spot.

Joining the duo on the front row will be Smith’s team-mate Nico Terol and Championship leader Pol Espargaró (Tuenti Racing) for what promises to be another thrilling and closely fought 125cc contest.

The second row will be fronted by Sandro Cortese (Avant Mitsubishi Ajo), with Dutch rider Jasper Iwema (CBC Corse) having surpassed his best ever previous qualification of 11th to take sixth spot on the grid for his home GP. Efrén Vázquez (Tuenti Racing) and Esteve Rabat (Blusens-STX) also set top-eight times.

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