Stoner commands first practice

This weekend's Losail event is spread over four days so that all the sessions can take place in similarly dark evening conditions, which meant an early start to the official running on Thursday night.

Honda convert Stoner hit the front just a few minutes in and was never headed, building a 0.610-second advantage over his team-mate Dani Pedrosa.

Behind the runaway Australian, the times were much closer, with just 0.230s covering from Pedrosa in second to third works Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso in eighth.

Hector Barbera was the fastest Ducati, with a shock one-off late fast lap to grab third on the Aspar team's satellite machine. His run pushed Marco Simoncelli's factory-specification Gresini Honda back to fourth.

Valentino Rossi's weekend got off to a better start than he might have expected. The Italian crept up to fifth, 0.7s off the pace, by the end of the 45 minutes.

He was ahead of both bikes from the team he has just left - Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo's Yamahas ending up only sixth and seventh.

Pramac Ducati's Randy de Puniet and Tech 3 Yamaha's Colin Edwards completed the top 10 at the end of an uneventful session.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m55.752s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m56.362s  + 0.610s
 3.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati    1m56.421s  + 0.669s
 4.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m56.441s  + 0.689s
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati          1m56.479s  + 0.727s
 6.  Ben Spies         Yamaha          1m56.493s  + 0.741s
 7.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m56.586s  + 0.834s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m56.592s  + 0.840s
 9.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m56.790s  + 1.038s
10.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m56.879s  + 1.127s
11.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m56.910s  + 1.158s
12.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m56.987s  + 1.235s
13.  Loris Capirossi   Pramac Ducati   1m57.366s  + 1.614s
14.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m57.429s  + 1.677s
15.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m57.821s  + 2.069s
16.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m58.528s  + 2.776s
17.  Toni Elias        LCR Honda       1m59.087s  + 3.335s