Stoner fastest again in practice two

Once again, the Honda rider was the first man to start setting quick times at the start of the session and was never headed.

His 1m55.457s benchmark was set on just his third lap of the day, and the closest anyone got was his team-mate Dani Pedrosa's 1m55.854s.

Honda held a one-two-three formation for a while, but Andrea Dovizioso was eventually edged back to fourth by Yamaha's Ben Spies.

World champion Jorge Lorenzo had a slight delay at the start of the session when his Yamaha developed a problem trying to leave the garage. It was quickly resolved and Lorenzo was fifth by the end of the 45 minutes.

Satellite Yamaha team Tech 3 had a promising session, with Colin Edwards taking sixth and team-mate Cal Crutchlow getting through the pain from his seriously injured finger to show his best MotoGP form yet in eighth. They were split by Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli.

The factory Ducatis of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden completed the top 10.

Under this weekend's unique format, the practice session that would normally take place on Saturday morning will run later tonight, with MotoGP then going straight into qualifying on Saturday.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike       Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m55.457s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m55.854s  + 0.397s
 3.  Ben Spies         Yamaha          1m56.116s  + 0.659s
 4.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m56.172s  + 0.715s
 5.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m56.220s  + 0.763s
 6.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m56.259s  + 0.802s
 7.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m56.378s  + 0.921s
 8.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m56.518s  + 1.061s
 9.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati          1m56.532s  + 1.075s
10.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m56.626s  + 1.169s
11.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m56.668s  + 1.211s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati    1m56.735s  + 1.278s
13.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m56.790s  + 1.333s
14.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m56.833s  + 1.376s
15.  Loris Capirossi   Pramac Ducati   1m57.304s  + 1.847s
16.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m57.683s  + 2.226s
17.  Toni Elias        LCR Honda       1m58.801s  + 3.344s