Casey Stoner fastest on first day of Mugello MotoGP testing

The world championship leader was using a new swingarm on his Honda and went down at the San Donato corner during the morning.

But the Australian later recorded a best time of 1m47.326s during the final 15 minutes of running to knock Marco Simoncelli's Gresini bike off the top spot by 0.096s.

Stoner's Honda team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was fastest during the morning, but could not keep pace with Stoner and Simoncelli as the Australian and Italian improved their times by around a second. His third best time overall was over 0.7s adrift.

Hector Barbera was the best non-Honda rider in fourth on his Aspar Ducati, but was 1.5s off the pace as he tried out the 'step 1' Desmosedici chassis. Karel Abraham - another morning crasher - was next up on his Cardion Ducati, ahead of Honda's Dani Pedrosa, who did not ride after 1pm.

Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista was seventh, ahead of Randy de Puniet's Pramac Ducati and Hiroshi Aoyama's Gresini Honda.

World Superbike racer Sylvain Guintoli had a try-out for Pramac as a possible replacement for the injured Loris Capirossi and was 10th fastest. He handed his bike over to Moto2 front-runner Andrea Iannone during the afternoon.

The slowest of the 11 riders on-track was another Moto2 rider, Mika Kallio. The regular Marc VDS rider gave the team its MotoGP test debut on a Suter powered by a 1000cc tuned BMW production engine.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m47.326s
 2.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m47.422s  + 0.096s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m48.061s  + 0.735s
 4.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati    1m48.837s  + 1.511s
 5.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m48.950s  + 1.624s
 6.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m49.015s  + 1.689s
 7.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m49.199s  + 1.873s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m49.384s  + 2.058s
 9.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m49.423s  + 2.097s
10.  Sylvain Guintoli  Pramac Ducati   1m52.398s  + 5.072s
11.  Mika Kallio       Marc VDS Suter  1m53.668s  + 6.342s