Sepang MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa dominates first practice

The Spaniard, who captured pole for last year's abandoned race, was the first rider to dip into the 2m01s bracket.

With a quarter of the session to run he had worked his way down to a 2m01.621s, at the time putting him almost half a second clear of Stoner and Lorenzo.

It wasn't until the final two minutes that the pair were able to close that gap, although neither was able to really threaten Pedrosa's benchmark.

Stoner, in his second race weekend following his return from injury, came closest, eventually ending the session 0.152s down.

Lorenzo meanwhile clocked a 2m01.934s on his penultimate tour, just over three tenths down on his title rival.

While Stoner's form suggests he could be a factor in Sunday's race, Lorenzo can still clinch the title by simply finishing third in the remaining three races, regardless of what Pedrosa manages.

Fourth and fifth went to the Tech 3 Yamaha pair of Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow, the Italian edging the intra-team battle by three hundredths of a second. Both riders finished more than six tenths down on Pedrosa however.

Ben Spies on the second works Yamaha claimed sixth ahead of LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl, the last rider to get within one second of Pedrosa.

Ducati's Nicky Hayden edged out Gresini Honda's Alvaro Bautista, third last weekend at Motegi, for eighth, while Pramac's Hector Barbera beat the second works Ducati of Valentino Rossi to 10th.

Rossi, winner of the last grand prix here in 2010, was more than 1.6s off the ultimate pace.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                 2m01.621s
 2.  Casey Stoner        Honda                 2m01.773s  + 0.152s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                2m01.934s  + 0.313s
 4.  Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.236s  + 0.615s
 5.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.266s  + 0.645s
 6.  Ben Spies           Yamaha                2m02.358s  + 0.737s
 7.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             2m02.617s  + 0.996s
 8.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                2m02.754s  + 1.133s
 9.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         2m02.872s  + 1.251s
10.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         2m03.221s  + 1.600s
11.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                2m03.274s  + 1.653s
12.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        2m04.624s  + 3.003s
13.  Randy de Puniet     Aspar Aprilia         2m05.029s  + 3.408s
14.  Aleix Espargaro     Aspar Aprilia         2m05.077s  + 3.456s
15.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     2m05.387s  + 3.766s
16.  Michele Pirro       Gresini FTR-Honda     2m06.058s  + 4.437s
17.  James Ellison       Paul Bird Aprilia     2m06.452s  + 4.831s
18.  Roberto Rolfo       Speed Master Aprilia  2m06.470s  + 4.849s
19.  Yonny Hernandez     Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m07.257s  + 5.636s
20.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m07.291s  + 5.670s
21.  Danilo Petrucci     Ioda Suter-BMW        2m07.818s  + 6.197s