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Motegi MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa edges Jorge Lorenzo in Japan practice two

Dani Pedrosa edged out MotoGP championship leader Jorge Lorenzo by just over one tenth of a second in the penultimate practice session at Motegi

It had been Lorenzo who set the pace early on, building on his chart-topping practice one form by dropping down to a 1m46.392s - at the time the fastest lap of the weekend.

As the Yamaha man was flying, Pedrosa looked to be struggling, lapping more than six tenths of a second slower and also suffering an off-track moment.

With 30 minutes to run however the Spaniard suddenly found massive gains, closing to within 0.123s of Lorenzo before jumping to the top of the timesheets with his next lap.

Lorenzo would respond in the final two minutes, improving the benchmark by one hundredth of a second, only for Pedrosa to once again go faster with a 1m46.088s in the final two minutes.

In a mirror of the championship situation, the pair were in a class of their own for most of the session.

That changed in the final minutes, when Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl and Valentino Rossi were among those to make massive improvements.

Dovizioso's was the most significant, the Tech 3 rider closing to within 0.2s of Pedrosa.

LCR Honda's Bradl meanwhile did enough to snatch fourth from Rossi. The Italian had gone third with four minutes to run, but as others also improved he eventually slipped to fifth.

That still put him ahead of the second works Yamaha and Honda of Ben Spies and Casey Stoner, the pair finishing sixth and seventh respectively.

Gresini's Alvaro Bautista claimed eighth ahead of Cal Crutchlow (Tech 3), Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Yamaha wildcard entry Katsuyuki Nakasuga.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                 1m46.088s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                1m46.190s  + 0.102s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha         1m46.282s  + 0.194s
 4.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             1m46.428s  + 0.340s
 5.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                1m46.687s  + 0.599s
 6.  Ben Spies           Yamaha                1m46.912s  + 0.824s
 7.  Casey Stoner        Honda                 1m46.978s  + 0.890s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         1m46.983s  + 0.895s
 9.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha         1m46.984s  + 0.896s
10.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                1m47.592s  + 1.504s
11.  Katsuyuki Nakasuga  Yamaha                1m47.801s  + 1.713s
12.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         1m48.232s  + 2.144s
13.  Aleix Espargaro     Aspar Aprilia         1m48.470s  + 2.382s
14.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        1m48.757s  + 2.669s
15.  Randy de Puniet     Aspar Aprilia         1m48.770s  + 2.682s
16.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     1m49.539s  + 3.451s
17.  James Ellison       Paul Bird Aprilia     1m49.652s  + 3.564s
18.  Michele Pirro       Gresini FTR-Honda     1m49.770s  + 3.682s
19.  Roberto Rolfo       Speed Master Aprilia  1m50.292s  + 4.204s
20.  Yonny Hernandez     Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m50.333s  + 4.245s
21.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m50.924s  + 4.836s
22.  Danilo Petrucci     Ioda Suter-BMW        1m51.270s  + 5.182s

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