World champion Casey Stoner conquered the conditions to claim pole position for Sunday's Czech Grand Prix in Brno.
The Ducati rider, who trails leader Valentino Rossi by 25 points in the MotoGP championship table, edged out the Italian during a wet qualifying session today.
It was the Australian's sixth straight pole, the longest pole streak since 1997, as he clocked a fastest time of two minutes 11.657 seconds to beat the Italian by more than a second.
America's John Hopkins on a Kawasaki, who lies way down in 16th in the overall table, qualified third, but there was disappointment for Britain's James Toseland after he crashed midway through the session.
Stoner's performance was all the more impressive given he had suffered with a fever and abdominal pains throughout free practice yesterday.
Despite being limited to short spells on the track though, he still recorded the fastest time in free practice - and followed that up in qualification.
The Australian, who is looking to bounce back from defeat to Rossi at the US Grand Prix last time out, was half a second clear of the field during morning qualifying.
And he extended his advantage to more than three seconds early in the afternoon session before Rossi narrowed it to 1.189secs as the midway stage approached.
The Italian though could not make any further inroads on his championship rival's time as the rain intensified and had to settle for second.
Suzuki rider Chris Vermeulen of Australia and Honda rider Alex de Angelis from San Marino qualified fourth and fifth.
Toseland's hopes of closing the gap on the championship's top eight took a blow though.
The Yamaha man, who lies ninth in the table, 12 points behind eighth-placed Nicky Hayden who is missing the Brno meeting through injury, fell on entry to a corner just after the halfway stage.
That meant the Brit failed to qualify - as did Spain's Jorge Lorenzo - but both should still be allowed to race given the treacherous track conditions.
