Gibernau jumps Melandri for Istanbul pole.

Sete Gibernau has overturned Movistar Honda team-mate Marco Melandri's dominant practice form to take pole position for Sunday's inaugural Turkish Grand Prix, at the Istanbul Park circuit.

All three free practice sessions prior to qualifying had been led by Melandri, the Italian underlining his dominance by ending Saturday morning a massive 0.82secs clear of Gibernau - with third fastest Colin Edwards almost 1.5secs from the #33.

But could Melandri, currently tied with Nicky Hayden for second in the championship, continue that stunning form on qualifying tyres and claim his first ever MotoGP pole?

The first half of the one-hour session ended with world champion Valentino Rossi on top - marking clear progress from the Italian, who had been left fifth fastest on Friday and only tenth this morning.

But Melandri would be back in command soon after - with further improvements then handing the #33 the first 1min 52secs lap of the afternoon - but he was still a few tenths adrift of his 1min 52.737secs fastest morning lap.

Marco continued to incrementally extend his advantage up to the start of the last ten-minutes - and the arrival of qualifying tyres - which he would use to finally beat his morning best and pull 0.4secs from new nearest rival Gibernau.

With six-minutes to go Edwards was completing the provisional front row ahead of team-mate Rossi - who would pull into the pits for a super quick bike swap before his final attack - but before the seven times world champion could return, Gibernau had moved the goalposts even further by stealing pole by a considerable 0.319secs.

Melandri attacked with his usual aggressive style, but would be left just 0.129secs from the double MotoGP championship runner-up, while Rossi - although able to overcome Edwards - was prevented from claiming a front row start as Hayden clinched third in the closing stages after lapping 0.642secs from Gibernau.

Instead, an all-RCV front row would be followed by an all-M1 second row with Rossi (+0.84secs), Edwards (+0.88secs) and MotoGP rookie Toni Elias (+0.89secs) rounding out the top six, while Makoto Tamada, Alex Barros, Carlos Checa and Shinya Nakano completed a top ten all covered by 1.6secs.

Chris Vermeulen did his hopes of a full time 2006 GP ride no harm by clocking the eleventh fastest time on the second Camel Honda - an improvement of three places form his grid position last week - while the Australian will also start one place ahead of factory Repsol Honda rider Max Biaggi.

John Hopkins qualified the sole Suzuki in 14th, with Ducati Marlboro stand-in Shinichi Itoh 15th.

Full times to follow...

Qualifying:

1. Gibernau
2. Melandri
3. Hayden
4. Rossi
5. Edwards
6. Elias
7. Tamada
8. Barros
9. Checa
10. Nakano
11. Vermeulen
12. Biaggi
13. Jacque
14. Hopkins
15. Itoh
16. Xaus
17. Rolfo
18. Ellison
19. Battaini