The 250cc World Champion again struggled with his left shoulder injury but did his best to put it behind him today as he concentrated purely on giving his best after two crash strewn weekends.

Dani knocked almost three seconds off his time from the morning to the afternoon despite rising temperatures and strong breezes at lunchtime.

His team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama, meanwhile, did not feeling comfortable lapping at Losail. The Japanese rider was unable to get comfortable with the front end and could only manage the ninth fastest time in the first qualifying session.

DANI PEDROSA (2nd, 2’03”905): “The shoulder is actually hurting me more here than it did in Malaysia, I don’t know why, but we’ll try and forget about it and go for the best result possible. Today was only the first day, the track was very dirty and even though we were the last category out and had better conditions than the others, it should get cleaner every day. The problem is that the wind is picking up and bringing sand onto the track. So far it hasn’t gone badly, we’ve lapped in 2’03”, we’re a second off last year’s time and I’m sure it will continue to improve.”

HIROSHI AOYAMA (9th, 2’04”715): “Today hasn’t gone well at all. I’ve got no confidence in the front end at this circuit and things just aren’t clicking. The weather this morning was also a bit misleading and in the afternoon we made a few changes without finding the confidence I need to go fast. Now we just have to look at all the data and hope to go better tomorrow”.

LAP TIMES

1. Jorge Lorenzo (Esp/Honda) 2’03”727
2. Dani Pedrosa (Esp/Honda) + 0”178
3. Sebastián Porto (Arg/Aprilia) + 0”206
4. Alex De Angelis ((RS/Aprilia) + 0”329
5. Casey Stoner (Aus/Aprilia) + 0”345
6. Héctor Barberá (Esp/Honda) + 0”642
7. Randy De Puniet (Fra/Aprilia) + 0”834
8. Andrea Dovizioso (Ita/Honda) + 0”932
9. Hiroshi Aoyama (Jjap/Honda) + 0”988
10. Mirko Giansanti (Ita/Aprilia) + 2”137