Pedrosa ends Qatar test on top

Pedrosa moved to the top of the timesheets during the afternoon session to give Honda some welcome news and end Yamaha's domination of the pre-season testing schedule.

Hopkins had caused a big surprise in the morning when he set the then fastest lap on his Rizla Suzuki after running through some short qualifying-simulation runs.

But it all turned to disaster shortly before the lunch break when he crashed heavily after being pitched off the bike at Turn 13.

The American was taken to hospital and it was discovered that he has broken a toe in his right foot and has a suspected fractured right hand. He is due to fly back to England tonight to see a specialist and is a doubt for next week's test at Jerez.

Valentino Rossi was third quickest, just less than half a second adrift of Pedrosa's best lap, as the Italian continued to make improvements to Yamaha's M1 bike.

Alex Hofmann was a surprise fourth fastest for the Pramac D'Antin team, just a couple of hundredths of a second ahead of Yamaha's Colin Edwards, who had been quickest on the first two days.

Randy de Puniet delivered an encouraging performance for Kawasaki to set the sixth quickest time, just ahead of Ducati Marlboro duo Loris Capirossi and Casey Stoner.

World champion Nicky Hayden finished down in 14th position.

Today's times:

Pos Rider                Make       Time  
 1. Dani Pedrosa         Honda      1:55.471
 2. John Hopkins         Suzuki     1:55.825
 3. Valentino Rossi      Yamaha     1:55.954
 4. Alex Hofmann         Ducati     1:56.315
 5. Colin Edwards        Yamaha     1:56.371
 6. Randy De Puniet      Kawasaki   1:56.753
 7. Loris Capirossi      Ducati     1:56.807
 8. Casey Stoner         Ducati     1:56.834
 9. Alex Barros          Ducati     1:56.950
10. Marco Melandri       Honda      1:56.980
11. Shinya Nakano        Honda      1:56.980
12. Makoto Tamada        Yamaha     1:57.232
13. Tony Elias           Honda      1:57.246
14. Nicky Hayden         Honda      1:57.269
15. Chris Vermeulen      Suzuki     1:57.365
16. Kenny Roberts        Honda      1:57.408
17. Carlos Checa         Honda      1:57.497
18. Sylvain Guintoli     Yamaha     1:58.379
19. Shinichi Ito         Ducati     1:58.974
20. Andrew Pitt          Ilmor      2:00.455
21. Olivier Jacque       Kawasaki   2:02.081
22. Jeremy McWilliams    Ilmor      2:02.612

All Timing Unofficial