Sandro Cortese beat Nico Terol to pole position for the 125cc race at Jerez.
The German managed to outshine Terol – who had been utterly dominant in Qatar two weeks ago – in two of the three practice sessions, and then grabbed pole at the end of qualifying. Cortese lapped in 1m47.399s on his Team Germany Aprilia, beating Aspar rider Terol by 0.209sec.
Terol's teammate Hector Faubel will join them on the front row, followed by the Ajo Derbis of Efren Vazquez and early polesitter Johann Zarco, and RW Aprilia's Luis Salom.
Louis Rossi looked set for a breakthrough performance as he sat in the top four at first but had two minor incidents during the session, which left his Matteoni Aprilia back in 13th.