Stoner leads Laguna warm-up

The Australian, however, set the fastest lap of 1m21.918s midway through the 20-minute session, after which he ran only one more lap to bring his total to six laps, while most other riders did 13 or 14.

The Ducati rider's lead over the rest of the field thus shrank from 1.2 seconds to a mere eight hundredths over championship leader Valentino Rossi.

The Italian looked set to beat the Australian's time more than once, thanks to being even two tenths ahead at the third sector, but his advantage would crumble each time in the last sector, just as it did in qualifying.

Honda's Dani Pedrosa set the third fastest time, three tenths behind Stoner, with Tech 3 Yamaha's Colin Edwards a further two tenths behind.

Pole-setter Jorge Lorenzo, who was seen limping today after a major high-side at the end of yesterday's qualifying, ran 13 laps this morning at Laguna Seca, with his best good enough for fifth on the timesheets, six tenths slower than Stoner.

Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) was sixth quickest, ahead of Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Marco Melandri, who had a big crash with his Hayate Kawasaki in the closing minutes but was uninjured.

Toni Elias, 12th quickest this morning, also crashed his Gresini Honda, and was seen inspecting his left hand in the aftermath.

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time               Laps
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    1m21.918s            6
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    1m21.998s + 0.080s  14
 3.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     1m22.252s + 0.334s  14
 4.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    1m22.459s + 0.541s  14
 5.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    1m22.512s + 0.594s  13
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     1m22.514s + 0.596s  14
 7.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati    1m22.777s + 0.859s  13
 8.  Marco Melandri    Kawasaki  1m23.051s + 1.133s  10
 9.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     1m23.136s + 1.218s  14
10.  James Toseland    Yamaha    1m23.208s + 1.290s  14
11.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    1m23.281s + 1.363s  13
12.  Toni Elias        Honda     1m23.360s + 1.442s   7
13.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     1m23.421s + 1.503s  13
14.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    1m23.624s + 1.706s  13
15.  Sete Gibernau     Ducati    1m23.683s + 1.765s  14
16.  Niccolo Canepa    Ducati    1m24.163s + 2.245s  14
17.  Gabor Talmacsi    Honda     1m24.271s + 2.353s  13