Valentino Rossi

Motorcycling star Valentino Rossi snatched his first pole position in over a year-and-a-half with a blistering pace giving him more records at his home track ahead of the Italian MotoGP on Saturday. The Yamaha rider clocked a new best time of 1min 46.208sec around the Mugello track to put him ahead of two Spanish riders: Ducati's Jorge Lorenzo at 0.035sec, with Rossi's Yamaha teammate Maverick Vinales, who was 0:096 off the pace, completing the front row for Sunday's race. It will be the 55th pole position in MotoGP -- 65 in all classes -- for the former seven-time world MotoGP champion and first since the Japanese Grand Prix in October 2016. Rossi also becomes the first rider to start from pole position seven times at Mugello.