Pedrosa fastest as Rossi returns

Rossi's return was inevitably the main point of interest in the session, and he was on the pace from the outset, holding fourth initially, just a tenth off the early benchmarks set by Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo.

Although Rossi did not join in the late quick runs and therefore fell to seventh, he still completed a highly encouraging 29 laps and was within 0.723 seconds of the pace.

At the front, the three leading teams all had spells on top, suggesting a very open weekend is in prospect. In the end it came down to a head to head between Pedrosa (Honda) and Stoner (Ducati), with the Spaniard moving 0.4s clear of the pack with 13 minutes to go.

Stoner closed in, but Pedrosa was able to go quicker again, ultimately setting three laps that would have stood as the best of the hour and ending on a 1m22.521s, 0.2s ahead of Stoner.

Both works Ducati were in the top three, with Nicky Hayden making a late jump to third.

Others to improve in the closing minutes were Tech 3 Yamaha's Ben Spies and Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli, who surged to fourth and fifth ahead of the two factory Yamahas.

Andrea Dovizioso missed the opening part of the session with mechanical problems on his Honda and was only 10th, behind Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) and Marco Melandri (Gresini Honda).

Both Pramac Ducatis and Hector Barbera's Aspar example held top 10 positions for a while, but amid a flurry of quick times late on, all were pushed back to the midfield.

Although Alex de Angelis was slowest as he returned to MotoGP to deputise for the injured Hiroshi Aoyama at Interwetten Honda, he was only 1.580s off the pace in the tightly-packed field.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m22.521s
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m22.795s  + 0.274s
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m22.983s  + 0.462s
 4.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m23.189s  + 0.668s
 5.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m23.204s  + 0.683s
 6.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m23.224s  + 0.703s
 7.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m23.244s  + 0.723s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m23.260s  + 0.739s
 9.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m23.290s  + 0.769s
10.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m23.400s  + 0.879s
11.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m23.422s  + 0.901s
12.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m23.430s  + 0.909s
13.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m23.440s  + 0.919s
14.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m23.589s  + 1.068s
15.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m23.599s  + 1.078s
16.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m24.020s  + 1.499s
17.  Alex de Angelis   Interwetten Honda  1m24.101s  + 1.580s