Lorenzo beats Pedrosa in session two

After a slow start to the morning, Yamaha rider Lorenzo knocked Casey Stoner (Ducati) off the top spot with a 1m42.748s lap halfway through the hour.

That was sufficient to keep him in front for the rest of the session, with Stoner closing to within 0.088s but unable to depose Lorenzo. Then with his final lap, Pedrosa produced a 1m42.798s to move up from fourth to second.

Randy de Puniet was a frontrunner all morning as his excellent recent form continued. He managed to keep his LCR Honda upright after outbraking himself and running through the gravel at the end of the backstraight - a move later emulated by Hector Barbera (Aspar Ducati) and Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) - and took fourth, just over 0.1s down on Lorenzo.

Aleix Espargaro also continued to impress for Pramac Ducati, setting the fifth-fastest time during a sequence of laps chasing Stoner, during which he almost clipped the works Ducati at Turn 1 when caught out by Stoner backing off.

Dovizioso completed the top six ahead of Marco Simoncelli's Gresini Honda, whole Suzuki had an encouraging session, with both riders in the top ten for much of the hour. In the end Loris Capirossi was eighth - only half a second behind Lorenzo - and Alvaro Bautista 11th, split by Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha) and an off-the-pace Nicky Hayden (Ducati). Ben Spies also had a disappointing result in 14th on Tech 3's second bike.

Marco Melandri put another 26 laps on his injured shoulder and sternum and was 15th for Gresini Honda, with just 1.3s covering everyone from Lorenzo to Melandri.

Yamaha test rider Wataru Yoshikawa remained slowest on Valentino Rossi's bike, but edged a little closer to the pace, cutting the gap to the front down to 3.9s.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m42.748s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m42.798s  + 0.050s
 3.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m42.836s  + 0.088s
 4.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m42.913s  + 0.165s
 5.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m42.978s  + 0.230s
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m43.031s  + 0.283s
 7.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m43.238s  + 0.490s
 8.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m43.261s  + 0.513s
 9.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m43.376s  + 0.628s
10.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m43.565s  + 0.817s
11.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m43.623s  + 0.875s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m43.900s  + 1.152s
13.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m43.923s  + 1.175s
14.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m43.946s  + 1.198s
15.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m44.115s  + 1.367s
16.  Kousuke Akiyoshi  Interwetten Honda  1m45.442s  + 2.694s
17.  Wataru Yoshikawa  Yamaha             1m46.653s  + 3.905s