Pichon takes twelfth pole in Germany.

Even if Stefan Everts is really close to his eighth world title with a large points gap, Mickael Pichon won't give up and proved this with his twelfth pole position of the season and showed that he's ready to put some more pressure on the Belgian Star, ahead of the German GP tomorrow.

Winner of the second MX2 qualifying race, Ben Townley was also impressive today and won his first battle with Tyla Rattray.

Pichon only failed to gain the top spot twice this year in the qualifying sessions, and despite some bad memories with Gaildorf were he ended his season prematurely last year, the French rider was the fastest MX1 rider during the three practice sessions.

"I never raced there with a 4 stroke, but once more the team did a great job and we found the right settings," said Pichon.

"Even if I crashed here last year I've always enjoyed this track and this year too I had a lot of fun there. The new section is really nice with some jumps; I just regret that they didn't cut it in the best way on the upper-side.

"I'm actually in great shape, I have raced every week for three months now and even if I felt tired sometimes as I start to practice in January I'm really happy with my condition. Tomorrow I will go for a double win, I know that Stefan has many chances to get the title but I will not give up and later he wins it, the better."

Second in the session, 1.5 seconds behind Pichon, Stefan Everts was relaxed when he visited the media centre at the end of the day.

"I'm really happy with my bike, and I feel good on the track," said Everts. "Everyone knows that Mickael is always really fast in qualifying, he has nothing to lose and everything can happen tomorrow.

"I'm satisfied with my result, I've been training more in the sand for a couple of weeks now. You need more finesse to ride in the sand and I was missing that earlier in the season. I felt much more relaxed We could have rain tomorrow but I don't care; I'm used to being really good in the mud but we haven't had so much in the last three years. It's like riding in the sand, at the beginning you fill really stiff but more you ride, the better it is."

In the same second as Everts follows Coppins, Ramon, Strijbos, Seguy and Meo on his 250 Kawasaki. Brian Jorgensen will not race tomorrow; the Danish rider had a knee infection after some insect sting earlier in the week.

The first MX2 qualifying races saw a nice battle between the three factory riders; Marc De Reuver got the holeshot followed by Tyla Rattray and Ben Townley but at the end of the race Townley beats Rattray, S?bastien Pourcel and De Reuver.

Chiodi took the holeshot in the second heat, but finally Mickael Maschio won. Stephen Sword had a heavy crash and was taken to the hospital for a check up, he will miss the GP as well as Andrew McFarlane, who broke his left collarbone, and Patrick Caps who damaged knee ligaments during the free practice session.