Ben Spies sets pace in first practice session for Indianapolis Grand Prix

The American, who is racing on home soil, had first hit the front on his Yamaha at the half-hour point with a lap in the mid 1m44s, but kept on improving and knocked Casey Stoner off the top spot after producing a 1m43.260s effort on his last flying lap.

Stoner's best lap - set a minute before the end - was 0.292s slower than that of Spies, but was something of a surprise as the world championship leader had been unable to make it any higher than sixth earlier on.

Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden made it three Americans in the top five on Tech 3 Yamaha and Ducati machinery respectively. Splitting the pair was Marco Simoncelli, who spent most of the session at the head of the timesheets, but slipped to fourth in the final two minutes.

With a new track surface having been laid ahead of the MotoGP event, riders worked to lay down rubber during the session. The result was that times improved by around 10s during the 45-minute session. The best time was still more than 3s off the lap record, however.

Valentino Rossi was sixth quickest for Ducati, ahead of Andrea Dovizioso's Honda and Hector Barbera's Aspar Ducati.

World champion Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa were surprisingly low down in ninth and 10th spots for Honda and Yamaha - each man significantly off the pace.

Cal Crutchlow twice went off the track on his Tech 3 Yamaha, but stayed on both times, while Karel Abraham was left out on-track when his Cardion AB Ducati ground to a halt at Turn 1 with 10 minutes to go.

Pos  Rider              Team/Bike          Time       Gap
 1.  Ben Spies          Yamaha             1m43.260s 
 2.  Casey Stoner       Honda              1m43.552s  + 0.292s   
 3.  Colin Edwards      Tech 3 Yamaha      1m43.574s  + 0.314s        
 4.  Marco Simoncelli   Gresini Honda      1m43.582s  + 0.322s 
 5.  Nicky Hayden       Ducati             1m44.236s  + 0.976s
 6.  Valentino Rossi    Ducati             1m44.362s  + 1.102s 
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso   Honda              1m44.551s  + 1.291s 
 8.  Hector Barbera     Aspar Ducati       1m45.026s  + 1.766s 
 9.  Jorge Lorenzo      Yamaha             1m45.065s  + 1.805s 
10.  Dani Pedrosa       Honda              1m45.192s  + 1.932s 
11.  Alvaro Bautista    Suzuki             1m45.249s  + 1.898s 
12.  Cal Crutchlow      Tech 3 Yamaha      1m45.368s  + 2.108s 
13.  Randy de Puniet    Pramac Ducati      1m45.577s  + 2.317s
14.  Hiroshi Aoyama     Gresini Honda      1m46.159s  + 2.899s
15.  Loris Capirossi    Pramac Ducati      1m46.484s  + 3.224s
16.  Karel Abraham      Cardion AB Ducati  1m46.643s  + 3.383s 
17.  Toni Elias         LCR Honda          1m47.507s  + 4.247s