Stoner fastest in first session

The world championship-leader jumped to the top of the timesheets midway through the one-hour session at Laguna Seca with a time of 1:24.242, which he further improved to set a final, blistering, best lap of 1:23.410 with three minutes to go.

Honda Gresini's Marco Melandri then tried to better Stoner's time, but could only set the second best time of the morning, 0.187 seconds behind the Australian.

American Colin Edwards also had a go with his Fiat Yamaha in the dying seconds of the session, but while he managed to make his last lap his best one, it was still only good for third, 0.095 seconds slower then Melandri.

Fellow American John Hopkins ended up fourth best in the session with his Rizla Suzuki, just one thousandth of a second faster than Edwards's teammate Valentino Rossi, who held top spot for most of the first half of this morning's running.

Chris Vermeulen on the other works Suzuki was sixth fastest, ahead of Randy de Puniet's Kawasaki in seventh.

Reigning world champion Nicky Hayden could only set the eighth best time in front of his home fans with his Repsol Honda, while his debutant brother Roger Lee put the third Kawasaki entry to good use to set the tenth fastest time, less than seven hundredths behind his sibling and almost a second ahead of Anthony West's Kawasaki in 17th place.

The two Hayden brothers were separated by d'Antin Ducati's Alex Barros in ninth, while the other works Honda of Dani Pedrosa was 11th, followed by Stoner's teammate Loris Capirossi in 12th.

The session was red-flagged with 26 minutes to go when Alex Hofmann's d'Antin Ducati was T-boned by Sylvayn Guintoli's Tech 3 Yamaha at the top of the track's famous Corkscrew section. The German hurt his left hand in the accident.

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    1:23.410
 2.  Marco Melandri    Honda     1:23.597  + 0.187
 3.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    1:23.692  + 0.282
 4.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    1:23.753  + 0.343
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    1:23.754  + 0.344
 6.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    1:23.962  + 0.552
 7.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  1:24.311  + 0.901
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     1:24.516  + 1.106
 9.  Alex Barros       Ducati    1:24.552  + 1.142
10.  Roger Lee Hayden  Kawasaki  1:24.584  + 1.174
11.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     1:24.680  + 1.270
12.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    1:24.786  + 1.376
13.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    1:25.032  + 1.622
14.  Carlos Checa      Honda     1:25.097  + 1.687
15.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     1:25.370  + 1.960
16.  Miguel Duhamel    Honda     1:25.550  + 2.140
17.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  1:25.570  + 2.160
18.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    1:25.745  + 2.335
19.  Kurtis Roberts    KR        1:26.058  + 2.648
20.  Alex Hofmann      Ducati    1:27.751  + 4.341