Lorenzo stays on top despite crashing

Conditions today were substantially better than Friday morning, but still tough for the riders, and Lorenzo was one of several to make a mistake - being flung from his Yamaha under acceleration at the final corner in the closing minutes.

Despite landing heavily on his back, Lorenzo was unhurt, instantly getting to his feet and walking away.

Just before then, Lorenzo had set a lap of 1m48.853s that would be the fastest of the morning, putting him half a second clear of his team-mate Valentino Rossi.

Andrea Dovizioso grabbed third for Honda with his last lap, pushing Casey Stoner back to fourth. The Ducati rider had a similar accident to Lorenzo on his first run, before rejoining on his spare bike.

Stoner's team-mate Nicky Hayden also fell without injury, in his case at Turn 2, and could not improve on 13th.

Colin Edwards was fifth for Tech 3 Yamaha, ahead of Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli and an impressive performance by Pramac Ducati rider Aleix Espargaro in seventh.

The injury-nursing Dani Pedrosa (Honda) and Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) both showed good form in eighth and 10th places, split by Marco Melandri - a pacesetter in the early stages - on the second Gresini bike.

Carlos Checa continued to rue the rain as he tried to get back into the swing of MotoGP with Pramac, though he moved off the foot of the timing screens and was 16th ahead of Aspar Ducati's Hector Barbera.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m48.853s
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m49.435s  + 0.582s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m50.007s  + 1.154s
 4.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m50.081s  + 1.228s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m50.313s  + 1.460s
 6.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m50.500s  + 1.647s
 7.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m50.787s  + 1.934s
 8.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m50.824s  + 1.971s
 9.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m51.250s  + 2.397s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m51.518s  + 2.665s
11.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m51.916s  + 3.063s
12.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m52.734s  + 3.881s
13.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m53.018s  + 4.165s
14.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1m53.317s  + 4.464s
15.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m53.537s  + 4.684s
16.  Carlos Checa      Pramac Ducati      1m53.933s  + 5.080s
17.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m54.073s  + 5.220s