Pedrosa unstoppable in first practice

Dani Pedrosa dominated the opening free practice session at Misano, ending the afternoon six tenths of a second clear of the field

The Honda rider, fresh from his third win of the year at Indianapolis last weekend, was at the front for the majority of the session.

Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) nosed ahead by 0.076s for a spell, but Pedrosa soon reasserted his authority. Although Lorenzo improved his pace several times after that, it was only ever by a few fractions of a second - and in any case Pedrosa moved well out of reach with two minutes to go when he set a 1m34.772s lap.

Then as the chequered flag fell, his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso came through to take second from Lorenzo by 0.06s and complete a Honda one-two.

Yamaha filled the next four places - Lorenzo leading his factory team-mate Valentino Rossi and Tech 3 pair Colin Edwards and Ben Spies.

It was a tough session for Ducati. Nicky Hayden was outside the top 10 for most of the hour, jumped up to fourth briefly, and ended up seventh, while his team-mate Casey Stoner struggled with the bike and was only eighth.

Gresini Honda's Marco Melandri and Suzuki's Loris Capirossi filled the final top 10 positions, with Hector Barbera in the top five for Aspar Ducati early on but pushed back to 11th in the end.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time      Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1:34.772
 2.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1:35.384  + 0.612s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1:35.444  + 0.672s
 4.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1:35.539  + 0.767s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1:35.834  + 1.062s
 6.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1:35.892  + 1.120s
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1:36.028  + 1.256s
 8.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1:36.072  + 1.300s
 9.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1:36.126  + 1.354s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1:36.277  + 1.505s
11.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1:36.293  + 1.521s
12.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1:36.454  + 1.682s
13.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1:36.533  + 1.761s
14.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1:36.716  + 1.944s
15.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1:37.001  + 2.229s
16.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1:37.697  + 2.925s
17.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1:37.900  + 3.128s