Stoner fastest in morning practice

It was Valentino Rossi on the other Yamaha who was the first of the frontrunners to lead the way early on, before Stoner moved ahead.

The Ducati rider chipped away at his time thereafter and managed to stay ahead even as his main rivals improved their pace too. The hour ended with 0.288s covered Stoner, Lorenzo, Rossi and fourth-placed Dani Pedrosa - as the Honda rider's last lap brought him into contention too.

The session got off to a violent start, with Ben Spies (Tech 3 Yamaha), Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki) and Mika Kallio (Pramac Ducati) all crashing within the first 10 minutes.

Bautista's crash was the most worrying, given that the Spanish rookie is already struggling with severe pain from a collarbone injury sustained in a motocross accident. He had promised to make a decision about his continued participation in the weekend following this practice session, but only completed two laps before a high-side that saw him land arms first and slump in the run-off in clear discomfort afterwards. He spent the rest of the session watching from the Suzuki garage.

Spies needed a trip to the medical centre for precautionary checks following his fall, which appeared innocuous at first until the American noticed pain in his left ankle as he came to rest. Checks revealed that he had suffered contusions rather than any broken bones and he was cleared to return to the track, although he sat out the rest of the morning, as did Kallio following his crash moments later.

That left Aleix Espargaro as Pramac's only representative for much of the session. Under pressure to impress following a disappointing start to 2010, Espargaro held a brilliant fifth for a long while, only losing the spot to Honda's Andrea Dovizioso in the closing moments, and staying ahead of factory Ducati rider Nicky Hayden, who was 0.013s down on the satellite bike in seventh.

The session saw little incident following the early crashes, although Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli had a minor fall in the final quarter of an hour.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m34.209s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m34.224s  + 0.015s
 3.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m34.451s  + 0.242s
 4.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m34.497s  + 0.288s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m34.538s  + 0.329s
 6.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m34.957s  + 0.748s
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m34.970s  + 0.761s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m34.985s  + 0.776s
 9.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m35.015s  + 0.806s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m35.083s  + 0.874s
11.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m35.511s  + 1.302s
12.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m36.010s  + 1.801s
13.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m36.048s  + 1.839s
14.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1m36.175s  + 1.966s
15.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m42.708s  + 8.499s
16.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m42.712s  + 8.503s
17.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m44.784s  + 10.575s