Pedrosa fastest in second session

The Honda rider's 2m04.944s lap near the end of the hour was 0.297 seconds clear of surprise second place man Randy de Puniet, who has been among the frontrunners for LCR Honda all weekend.

Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) snatched third from Casey Stoner with his penultimate lap of the hour. Stoner had dominated the opening stages for Ducati, holding an advantage of 0.7s for a while, but his early 2m05.539s stood as his best of the session and was pushed back to fourth.

The session saw several crashes, starting with Andrea Dovizioso falling on the way into Club early on. He was soon back in action on his second Honda and took fifth ahead of Nicky Hayden's Ducati, Marco Melandri's Gresnini Honda and Colin Edwards' Tech 3 Yamaha.

Rookies Ben Spies, Hector Barbera and Marco Simoncelli also had accidents. Both Barbera (Aspar Ducati) and Simoncelli (Gresini Honda) had violent falls on the way into the Becketts complex, but were able to walk away, while Tech 3 Yamaha's Spies fell at the Village corner in the new section and appeared to be in pain initially before walking clear of the scene.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              2m04.944s
 2.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          2m05.241s  + 0.297s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             2m05.348s  + 0.404s
 4.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             2m05.539s  + 0.595s
 5.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              2m05.594s  + 0.650s
 6.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             2m06.128s  + 1.184s
 7.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      2m06.205s  + 1.261s
 8.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      2m06.619s  + 1.675s
 9.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      2m06.829s  + 1.885s
10.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      2m06.903s  + 1.959s
11.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      2m07.017s  + 2.073s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       2m07.035s  + 2.091s
13.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  2m07.832s  + 2.888s
14.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      2m07.930s  + 2.986s
15.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             2m08.053s  + 3.109s
16.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             2m08.969s  + 4.025s