Lorenzo leads Laguna final practice

The Yamaha rider exchanged quickest laps with teammate Valentino Rossi for the first half of the session, before Casey Stoner shot to the top of the timesheet with 24 minutes remaining in the one-hour session.

The Ducati's time of 1m21.835s improved on yesterday's quickest time set by Rossi and looked set to remain the best time of the weekend thus far.

But Lorenzo, who until the final seconds of the session was two tenths slower than Stoner, managed first to get within 0.025s of the Australian's time, and then to clock the fastest time of 1m21.799s on the final lap.

Therefore Stoner ended up second, 0.036s behind the Spaniard, with Rossi third, over three tenths further behind.

Toni Elias's Gresini-entered works Honda beat the Repsol-backed factory entries of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa, followed by Colin Edwards's Tech 3 Yamaha and Chris Vermeulen's Suzuki, despite the latter having a heavy accident.

Nicky Hayden also fell but still improved the performance of his works Ducati over yesterday's lowly 14th place with the American setting the ninth-quickest time, ahead of James Toseland (Tech 3 Yamaha) completing the top ten.

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    1m21.799s
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    1m21.835s + 0.036s
 3.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    1m22.177s + 0.378s
 4.  Toni Elias        Honda     1m22.367s + 0.568s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     1m22.552s + 0.753s
 6.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     1m22.561s + 0.762s
 7.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    1m22.781s + 0.982s
 8.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    1m22.917s + 1.118s
 9.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati    1m22.935s + 1.136s
10.  James Toseland    Yamaha    1m23.127s + 1.328s
11.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     1m23.368s + 1.569s
12.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     1m23.451s + 1.652s
13.  Marco Melandri    Kawasaki  1m23.452s + 1.653s
14.  Sete Gibernau     Ducati    1m23.849s + 2.050s
15.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    1m23.951s + 2.152s
16.  Gabor Talmacsi    Honda     1m24.114s + 2.315s
17.  Niccolo Canepa    Ducati    1m24.202s + 2.403s