Dani Pedrosa leads first Aragon practice session for Honda

Pedrosa's Honda team-mate Casey Stoner had looked untouchable at the front for much of the morning as his early 1m50.806s lap put him half a second clear of the Spaniard and over a second ahead of everyone else.

But a flurry of late improvements saw Stoner reeled in and toppled. Jorge Lorenzo was first to beat the championship leader with a 1m50.7s lap on his Yamaha, before Pedrosa came through with first a 1m50.4s then a 1m50.281s to put himself nearly half a second in front of his rivals.

Lorenzo and Stoner remained second and third, with the world champion the only man in the top five not on a factory-spec Honda as Gresini's Marco Simoncelli and works team rider Andrea Dovizioso took fourth and fifth.

Randy de Puniet put in several rapid laps on the Pramac Ducati and was as high as third for a while before jumping back up to sixth having been shuffled down the order.

The works Ducatis were seventh and eighth. Nicky Hayden was 0.2s quicker than Valentino Rossi, who tried a revised version of the GP11 with a partially aluminium frame in the second half of the session. His best time - 1.395s down on Pedrosa - came on the latest specification bike.

Ben Spies was back in 11th on the second works Yamaha, behind Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Hiroshi Aoyama (Gresini Honda), but had been in the top three before all the last-minute quick laps.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m50.281s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m50.730s  + 0.449s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m50.806s  + 0.525s
 4.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m50.893s  + 0.612s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m51.091s  + 0.810s
 6.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m51.376s  + 1.095s
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m51.418s  + 1.137s
 8.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati          1m51.676s  + 1.395s
 9.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m51.826s  + 1.545s
10.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m51.859s  + 1.578s
11.  Ben Spies         Yamaha          1m51.911s  + 1.630s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati    1m52.016s  + 1.735s
13.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m52.224s  + 1.943s
14.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m52.580s  + 2.299s
15.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m53.158s  + 2.877s
16.  Toni Elias        LCR Honda       1m53.440s  + 3.159s
17.  Loris Capirossi   Pramac Ducati   1m53.842s  + 3.561s