Casey Stoner stormed to his ninth pole of the MotoGP season with a blistering performance in Aragon qualifying.
The championship leader dominated the session, setting a new circuit record as he comfortably beat Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa to the top spot.
"Everything has gone almost perfectly this weekend," said Stoner, whose title rival Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo is only fourth on the grid.
The Australian leads the overall standings by 35 points from Lorenzo.
"The bike's been very close to what we want, in general everything's been going really well," said Stoner.
"On old tyres, new tyres, the bike in general just seems to be flowing on this circuit."
Stoner set his eventual pole time on his spare bike after a minor crash.
"We had a little bit of a mishap on the soft tyre," said the current leader. "We did the first lap and I was a little bit cautious in the first sector just to get the tyre warmed up."
"The next lap I went to push a little harder and I was a lot quicker and had a lot more grip than I had the laps before."
"When I went to get on the brakes I felt I had too much lean angle, and so I picked the bike up but I didn't really find anymore grip so I went off over the astroturf and just kept locking the front. So I had to lay it down before we hit the barriers.
"Unfortunately we couldn't get bike one started, but we came back, got bike two and went faster."
Valentino Rossi had yet another tough session. The Ducati rider crashed at the penultimate corner and will start 13th on the grid.
Aragon Grand Prix MotoGP qualification results:
1. Casey Stoner (AUS/Honda) one minute 48.451 seconds
2. Dani Pedrosa (ESP/Honda) at 0.296sec
3. Ben Spies (USA/Yamaha) 0.704
4. Jorge Lorenzo (ESP/Yamaha) 0.819
5. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA/Honda) 0.921
6. Marco Simoncelli (ITA/Honda) 1.077
7. Nicky Hayden (USA/Ducati) 1.301
8. Karel Abraham (CZE/Ducati) 1.326
9. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN/Honda) 1.362
10. Randy de Puniet (FRA/Ducati) 1.375
