Hopkins tops second free practice

The American left it until the final minute of the session to post his fastest lap -- and was clearly overjoyed at the result as he performed several wheelies on his slowing down lap after the chequered flag.

With his sights firmly set on his first podium finish of the season, Hopkins edged out fellow Bridgestone runner Marco Melandri by just one tenth of a second after the Gresini Honda rider also left his best until the very end.

The competitiveness of MotoGP was proved with there being just one further tenth of a second between Melandri's best lap and that of Colin Edwards down in seventh.

Dani Pedrosa had briefly topped the timesheets with three minutes to go before dropping down to third when Hopkins and Melandri put their best laps in, while world champion Nicky Hayden set a confidence boosting fourth fastest time.

Loris Capirossi was Ducati's fastest rider in fifth place, as teammate Stoner failed to capitalise on a late effort and ended the session eighth in the standings -- having been at the top early on.

Valentino Rossi had a brief scare early on when he ran wide at the first corner and across the asphalt run-off area, but he recovered to set the sixth quickest time.

The session was relatively incident-free, with Kawasaki riders Randy de Puniet and Olivier Jacque the only other men to have notable incidents. De Puniet ran wide at the final hairpin halfway through the session, while Jacque fell and was seen holding his right wrist as he ran away from his stricken bike.

Pos  Rider              Bike      Time
 1.  John Hopkins       Suzuki    2:01.204
 2.  Marco Melandri     Honda     2:01.303  + 0.099
 3.  Dani Pedrosa       Honda     2:01.333  + 0.129
 4.  Nicky Hayden       Honda     2:01.346  + 0.142
 5.  Loris Capirossi    Ducati    2:01.365  + 0.161
 6.  Valentino Rossi    Yamaha    2:01.390  + 0.186
 7.  Colin Edwards      Yamaha    2:01.409  + 0.205
 8.  Casey Stoner       Ducati    2:01.460  + 0.256
 9.  Alex Hofmann       Ducati    2:01.771  + 0.567
10.  Carlos Checa       Honda     2:01.881  + 0.677
11.  Randy de Puniet    Kawasaki  2:01.896  + 0.692
12.  Chris Vermeulen    Suzuki    2:01.991  + 0.787
13.  Alex Barros        Ducati    2:02.051  + 0.847
14.  Toni Elias         Honda     2:02.114  + 0.910
15.  Makoto Tamada      Yamaha    2:02.242  + 1.038
16.  Kenny Roberts Jr   KR        2:02.564  + 1.360
17.  Sylvain Guintoli   Yamaha    2:02.768  + 1.564
18.  Olivier Jacque     Kawasaki  2:02.818  + 1.614
19.  Shinya Nakano      Honda     2:02.977  + 1.773