Edwards claims maiden pole

Colin Edwards claimed the first pole position of his MotoGP career with a stunning last-ditch lap at the French GP. The Texan Yamaha man logged a 1:33.616 with the chequered flag waving to deny Ducati's Casey Stoner by less than a tenth of a second.

The drama was a fitting culmination to a session that saw the leaderboard change rapidly as Edwards battled for supremacy with the likes of Stoner, Carlos Checa and John Hopkins, who were third and fifth, with Valentino Rossi fourth.

Such was Edwards' pace that his pole lap was 0.374 seconds faster than Dani Pedrosa's pole position record set in 2006 on a 990cc bike, compared with the smaller 800cc engines used this year.

"It's been working good all weekend, and we played around with tyres a couple times during the session," said Edwards who suffered a rare tumble in morning practice.

"We had a big off this morning which was a big scary but I thought screw it the ground didn't hurt as much as I remember."

Speaking about his pole position lap, he said: "We lost a bit of time on the first section., and held steady on the second. In the final section I thought screw it, if I come off, I come off, the ground doesn't hurt that bad!"

Despite seeing his pole position hopes dashed at the last second, the young Australian Stoner could afford to be magnanimous.

"It's gone really well so far. I'm not normally much of a qualifier. I thought I might have had pole position but Colin just pipped me at the end," he said.

Nicky Hayden will start from the third row of the grid in seventh place, while Dani Pedrosa fared even less well. He will be on row four after qualifying 10th.

EuroSport