Stoner fastest in final MotoGP test
Casey Stoner edged out Dani Pedrosa on another night of Honda dominance as MotoGP's pre-season testing ended in Qatar
Honda has been fastest on all eight days of winter testing, and the works team took another one-two at Losail, with Stoner's 1m55.681s in the closing stages beating Pedrosa by 0.064 seconds.
Ben Spies at least managed to interrupt the Honda formation by getting the works Yamaha up to third, ahead of Gresini Honda's Marco Simoncelli and third factory Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso.
Randy de Puniet bounced back from his Sunday crashes to take an excellent sixth on the Pramac Ducati, in his strongest performance since joining the team.
World champion Jorge Lorenzo was only seventh for Yamaha - but he fared better than his erstwhile team-mate Valentino Rossi, whose Ducati was back in 13th place, albeit just 0.3s down on Lorenzo in the very tight midfield.
Rossi also had a crash during the evening, but he was in good company, with a huge number of falls on a surface made treacherous by sand blown in on the night's strong winds.
Every Ducati rider bar de Puniet had an incident today, with works rider Nicky Hayden, Aspar's Hector Barbera, Pramac's Loris Capirossi and Cardion's Karel Abraham also falling, as did Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista, LCR Honda's Toni Elias and Tech 3 Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow.
The Briton was the only rider to sustain an injury, damage to a finger truncating his evening.
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time Gap Laps 1. Casey Stoner Honda 1m55.681s 46 2. Dani Pedrosa Honda 1m55.745s + 0.064s 39 3. Ben Spies Yamaha 1m56.294s + 0.613s 45 4. Marco Simoncelli Gresini Honda 1m56.433s + 0.752s 70 5. Andrea Dovizioso Honda 1m56.439s + 0.758s 58 6. Randy de Puniet Pramac Ducati 1m56.445s + 0.764s 67 7. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1m56.707s + 1.026s 48 8. Colin Edwards Tech 3 Yamaha 1m56.716s + 1.035s 57 9. Nicky Hayden Ducati 1m56.726s + 1.045s 68 10. Hiroshi Aoyama Gresini Honda 1m56.740s + 1.059s 73 11. Hector Barbera Aspar Ducati 1m56.798s + 1.117s 62 12. Alvaro Bautista Suzuki 1m56.931s + 1.250s 63 13. Valentino Rossi Ducati 1m56.988s + 1.307s 50 14. Loris Capirossi Pramac Ducati 1m57.345s + 1.664s 62 15. Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha 1m57.730s + 2.049s 28 16. Karel Abraham Cardion Ducati 1m57.846s + 2.165s 49 17. Toni Elias LCR Honda 1m58.536s + 2.855s 57
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