Casey Stoner dominates opening MotoGP practice at Le Mans

Stoner went clear early on and rarely looked troubled thereafter, and for half the session was almost one second clear of the field.

When others, chiefly his Honda stable-mate Dani Pedrosa, did close in, the Australian went back out and lowered his benchmark further, ending the session 0.587 seconds clear of Pedrosa.

There was a flurry of improvements as the flag fell. Tech 3 Yamaha's Andrea Dovizioso claimed third, while his team-mate Cal Crutchlow simultaneously moved into seventh.

Little more than a quarter of a second separated the pair, but that gap was still enough for three other riders: the two works Yamahas of Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo, fourth and sixth respectively, and the Pramac Ducati of Hector Barbera.

Gresini's Alvaro Bautista finished eighth ahead of the two works Ducatis, both of which had run within the top six for much of the session before being bumped down by the late improvements.

Valentino Rossi, who scored his last MotoGP podium at the French circuit last year, finished more than 1.5s down on Stoner but did complete the most laps of any rider.

Aspar's Randy de Puniet was once again the fastest CRT rider in 13th, while Chris Vermeulen - replacing the man de Puniet hit at Estoril, Colin Edwards - made an understandably cautious start, finishing last and outside the 107 per cent marker.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike                 Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda                     1m34.321s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                     1m34.908s  + 0.587s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha             1m35.065s  + 0.744s
 4.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                    1m35.202s  + 0.881s
 5.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati             1m35.213s  + 0.892s
 6.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                    1m35.239s  + 0.918s
 7.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha             1m35.318s  + 0.997s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda             1m35.336s  + 1.015s
 9.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    1m35.403s  + 1.082s
10.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                    1m35.829s  + 1.508s
11.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati            1m36.291s  + 1.970s
12.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 1m36.500s  + 2.179s
13.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia             1m36.935s  + 2.614s
14.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia             1m37.916s  + 3.595s
15.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master Aprilia      1m38.140s  + 3.819s
16.  Yonny Hernandez   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki      1m38.209s  + 3.888s
17.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda         1m38.255s  + 3.934s
18.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia         1m38.943s  + 4.622s
19.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia              1m39.110s  + 4.789s
20.  Ivan Silva        Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki  1m39.729s  + 5.408s
21.  Chris Vermeulen   Forward Suter-BMW         1m41.398s  + 7.077s