Dani Pedrosa fastest in Sachsenring MotoGP practice in mixed weather

The weather kept the field guessing throughout: heavy rain led to a brief hiatus at the start, while looming clouds appeared with 10 minutes to go, leading many to head back to the pits.

The rain never arrived however and conditions continued to improve right up until the flag, with top spot changing hands on an almost lap-by-lap basis as a result.

Pedrosa, quickest in the opening practice and victor here in the past two seasons, was the man who eventually emerged on top courtesy of a 1m32.228s set two minutes from the finish.

As the flag flew the German fans had the anticipation of seeing LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl go faster in the first two sectors, only for the home favourite to lose time slightly and end the session second fastest, seven hundredths of a second down.

Jorge Lorenzo also set his best time late on, sealing third for Yamaha, while Casey Stoner on the second works Honda ended fourth, having been top with three minutes of the session to run.

Ducati and Tech 3 dictated the next four spots, with Valentino Rossi finishing fifth ahead of Nicky Hayden, Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso. All four riders got within 0.6s of Pedrosa's best.

Ben Spies ended the session in ninth on board the second works Yamaha, while Hector Barbera (Pramac Ducati) - quickest with a quarter of the session gone when conditions were at their worst - slipped to 10th ahead of Gresini's Alvaro Bautista.

Following his pitlane crash in practice one, Mattia Pasini managed to get out in the final quarter of the session, ending 14th fastest on his Speed Master machine. Paul Bird's James Ellison set the CRT pace in 12th, 2.6s down on Pedrosa.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike                 Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                     1m32.228s
 2.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 1m32.304s  + 0.076s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                    1m32.327s  + 0.099s
 4.  Casey Stoner      Honda                     1m32.408s  + 0.180s
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                    1m32.532s  + 0.304s
 6.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    1m32.657s  + 0.429s
 7.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha             1m32.744s  + 0.516s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha             1m32.817s  + 0.589s
 9.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                    1m33.107s  + 0.879s
10.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati             1m33.147s  + 0.919s
11.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda             1m33.227s  + 0.999s
12.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia         1m34.894s  + 2.666s
13.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia             1m34.910s  + 2.682s
14.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master Aprilia      1m34.946s  + 2.718s
15.  Yonny Hernandez   Inmotec FTR-Kawasaki      1m35.204s  + 2.976s
16.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia             1m35.311s  + 3.083s
17.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Aprilia              1m35.355s  + 3.127s
18.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda         1m35.461s  + 3.233s
19.  Franco Battaini   Cardion Ducati            1m36.019s  + 3.791s
20.  Ivan Silva        Avintia Inmotec-Kawasaki  1m36.800s  + 4.572s
21.  Colin Edwards     Forward Suter-BMW         1m43.245s  + 11.017s