De Angelis leads Indy warm-up

The rider from San Marino left it to the very last lap to shoot to the top with his Gresini Honda thanks to an impressive 1m40.446s lap that ruined what had been Dani Pedrosa's perfect weekend.

The factory Honda rider, who dominated qualifying after also topping all practice sessions, was leading the 20-minute warm-up when he took the chequered flag, but that was before being pushed down to second by de Angelis.

The Spaniard thus ended up 0.043s behind, but his main rivals, namely Yamaha riders Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, were still behind.

The two, who will join Pedrosa on the front row later today, ended the session respectively in third and fourth place but, most importantly, their gaps to the triple world champion have shrunk to less than three tenths of a second.

Toni Elias, in the second Gresini Honda, was fifth fastest, eight tenths behind his team-mate, but ahead of home favourites Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha).

Italians Marco Melandri (Hayate Kawasaki), Andrea Dovizioso (Honda), and Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) round up the top ten.

Pramac Ducati's Niccolo Canepa crashed in the dying seconds of the session while stand-in team-mate Aleix Espargaro managed to end up 15th after beating Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen and Scot Honda's Gabor Talmacsi.

Pos  Rider            Team             Time                Laps
 1.  Alex de Angelis  Gresini Honda    1m40.446s            12
 2.  Dani Pedrosa     Honda            1m40.489s + 0.043s   12
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo    Yamaha           1m40.717s + 0.271s   12
 4.  Valentino Rossi  Yamaha           1m40.759s + 0.313s   12
 5.  Toni Elias       Gresini Honda    1m41.308s + 0.862s   12
 6.  Nicky Hayden     Ducati           1m41.352s + 0.906s   12
 7.  Colin Edwards    Tech 3 Yamaha    1m41.436s + 0.990s   12
 8.  Marco Melandri   Hayate Kawasaki  1m41.535s + 1.089s   12
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso Honda            1m41.719s + 1.273s   12
10.  Loris Capirossi  Suzuki           1m41.990s + 1.544s   12
11.  Randy de Puniet  LCR Honda        1m42.260s + 1.814s   11
12.  Niccolo Canepa   Pramac Ducati    1m42.515s + 2.069s   11
13.  James Toseland   Tech 3 Yamaha    1m42.534s + 2.088s   11
14.  Mika Kallio      Ducati           1m42.547s + 2.101s   11
15.  Aleix Espargaro  Pramac Ducati    1m42.581s + 2.135s   12
16.  Chris Vermeulen  Suzuki           1m42.794s + 2.348s   10
17.  Gabor Talmacsi   Scot Honda       1m43.105s + 2.659s   12