Casey Stoner sets early Phillip Island pace in spite of minor crash

Stoner needs to leave Phillip Island with a 50-point advantage over his nearest rival - reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo - and if he wins with the Spaniard lower than third the Australian will regain the crown he lost to Valentino Rossi in 2008.

And Stoner began the weekend in determined fashion, heading the 45-minute session from the outset in spite of an early spill.

Weather conditions were picture perfect on this most glorious of bike tracks, but with rumours of poor weather coming in later on Friday, the teams wanted to get on with it in FP1.

The world championship leader wasted no time at all in signalling his intentions on home ground, posting a 1m30.475s lap (within half a second of last year's pole) on only his second full lap. But while he demonstrated this instant searing pace, Stoner also allowed in a moment of weakness as he dropped the factory RC212V at Honda Hairpin less than 10 minutes into the session.

It was a gentle, slow-speed incident and Stoner's pain was limited only to that of the emotional kind as he trundled his virtually unblemished bike back to the pits.

Just moments later, Marco Simoncelli (Gresini Honda), who had gone second fastest, also crashed in similar circumstances at Turn 10.

Twenty minutes into the session and both those riders had returned to the track just as Lorenzo's Yamaha moved up to second position.

The reigning world champion then filed in a number of laps that edged him closer to Stoner, but even his 1m30.811s best in this period was slower than the times the Honda man was still posting - even if they were being produced with no small amount of flamboyance.

Lorenzo had another try at the end of the session and improved to a 1m30.744s - still more than 0.3s off Stoner's mark.

Simoncelli ended up third fastest ahead of an impressive Colin Edwards on the Tech 3 Yamaha. Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa were fifth and sixth on the other HRC Hondas with Nicky Hayden a surprising seventh on the factory Ducati. Ben Spies (Yamaha), Hiroshi Aoyama (Gresini) and Loris Capirossi (Pramac Ducati) completed the top 10.

Rossi had a quiet session, ending it in 12th position on the Ducati, just ahead of Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista.

Karel Abraham had a late crash on his Cardion Ducati on route to 15th, while Damian Cudlin - replacing Asper's Hector Barbera , who suffered a broken collarbone in his Motegi crash - was last, four seconds off the pace.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m30.475s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m30.744s  + 0.269s
 3.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m30.951s  + 0.476s
 4.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m31.480s  + 1.005s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m31.532s  + 1.057s
 6.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m31.571s  + 1.096s
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m31.662s  + 1.187s
 8.  Ben Spies         Yamaha          1m31.824s  + 1.349s
 9.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m31.935s  + 1.460s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Pramac Ducati   1m32.052s  + 1.577s
11.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m32.096s  + 1.621s
12.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati          1m32.114s  + 1.639s
13.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m32.393s  + 1.918s
14.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m32.583s  + 2.108s
15.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m32.615s  + 2.140s
16.  Toni Elias        LCR Honda       1m33.641s  + 3.166s
17.  Damian Cudlin     Aspar Ducati    1m34.121s  + 3.646s