Simoncelli claims pole position in Assen

Italy's Marco Simoncelli claimed his second pole position of the season as he topped the timesheets in qualifying for Saturday's Dutch TT at Assen.

The Honda Gresini rider maintained his pace from Thursday's curtailed practice sessions as he went quickest with a best time of one minute 34.718 seconds, 0.009secs clear of Yamaha's Ben Spies.
Yesterday's second practice session was cancelled after rain and an oil spillage from an accident in the Moto2 class made the circuit too treacherous to use, costing the riders set-up time.
But Simoncelli had clearly already found the sweet spot as he went quickest on Thursday morning, and maintained that advantage despite Spies' improvement.
The American went to the top of the pile halfway through the 60-minute session, becoming the first rider to duck into the 1min 34s, but Simoncelli responded to put himself in the perfect position to claim his first MotoGP win.
Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner, the championship leader and winner of the last three grands prix, took third, around three tenths off pole, after recovering from a crash in Friday morning's final practice session.
Indeed all three factory Honda riders were involved in accidents on Friday morning, but all were back out in qualifying, with Andrea Dovizioso taking fifth and Hiroshi Aoyama, deputising for the injured Dani Pedrosa, 12th.
Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) took fourth while Yamaha Tech 3's Cal Crutchlow, still nursing a broken collarbone sustained at Silverstone two weeks ago, took a fine sixth place having looked poised for a front-row start at one stage.
"I was on the front row right at the end and it just got taken away, but I'm still really happy because I came here and didn't think I'd even be riding at this stage of the weekend," said the Briton.
"I thought I'd only be able to do a few laps because of my collarbone injury and here I am fighting for the front row.
"Sixth seems to be my position on the grid at the moment because that's the third race in a row I've started from that place.
"My shoulder is really sore now too. The 90-minute session this morning [Friday] followed by another hour this afternoon means I can really feel the collarbone throbbing.
"The fast changes of direction are the biggest issue. Flicking the bike through some of those fast kinks is hard enough when you've got full strength, so for me having a big operation to plate my collarbone only last week, it is really difficult."
Czech rookie Karel Abraham was again impressive as he qualified seventh for Cardion AB Motoracing, with Colin Edwards (Yamaha Tech 3), Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) completing the top 10.
Valentino Rossi struggled on the new Ducati GP11.1 and will start from 11th, while Loris Capirossi (Pramac Racing) and Toni Elias (LCR Honda) both suffered accidents in the qualifying hour and will line up 15th and 16th respectively.