Pedrosa leads Sachsenring warm-up

The Honda rider, in perfectly sunny conditions after yesterday's soaking qualifying session, jumped ahead of Ducati rival Casey Stoner with five minutes left in the 20-minute session and improved on his own time in the dying seconds with a 1m22.391s lap time.

Stoner thus had to settle for second best, 0.273s behind the Spaniard, and 0.129s in front of the latter's teammate, Andrea Dovizioso, who like Pedrosa seems to be in much better shape today after the two Honda riders qualified respectively in eighth and 11th places.

Marco Melandri is another improver by ending up fifth with his Hayate Kawasaki today after qualifying 13th. The Italian is squeezed between the Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo in fourth and pole position man Valentino Rossi in a disappointing sixth place.

Pramac Ducati's Mika Kallio carries on battling against his injury by setting the seventh fastest time, ahead of Nicky Hayden, who crashed this morning with one minute to go and had to abandon his factory Ducati in the gravel trap.

The Gresini Honda pair of Alex de Angelis and Toni Elias complete the top ten.

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time               Laps
 1.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     1m22.391s           14
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    1m22.664s + 0.273s  12
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     1m22.793s + 0.402s  14
 4.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    1m22.814s + 0.423s  14
 5.  Marco Melandri    Kawasaki  1m22.869s + 0.478s  14
 6.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    1m23.078s + 0.687s  14
 7.  Mika Kallio       Ducati    1m23.157s + 0.766s  13
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati    1m23.164s + 0.773s  11
 9.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     1m23.232s + 0.841s  12
10.  Toni Elias        Honda     1m23.269s + 0.878s  13
11.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    1m23.275s + 0.884s  12
12.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     1m23.413s + 1.022s  14
13.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    1m23.570s + 1.179s  13
14.  James Toseland    Yamaha    1m23.631s + 1.240s  14
15.  Gabor Talmacsi    Honda     1m24.054s + 1.663s  12
16.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    1m24.105s + 1.714s  13
17.  Niccolo Canepa    Ducati    1m24.319s + 1.928s  13