Stoner leads opening Indy practice

Championship leader Lorenzo had dominated much of the hour, taking the lead 15 minutes in and then steadily chipping further fractions off his time.

Stoner was his closest rival but kept falling short - until with 16 minutes to go the Ducati rider produced a 1m40.884s lap to beat Lorenzo by nearly half a second.

Although the Yamaha rider closed that gap down to 0.225 seconds by the end of the session, Stoner remained on top.

Nicky Hayden took third on home ground despite crashing his primary Ducati at Turn 13. He appeared to be nursing his already-injured arm as he walked away, but seemed to have escaped further damage.

Dani Pedrosa (Honda) and Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) improved to fourth and fifth by the end, having earlier languished further down the top 10.

All three of MotoGP's Americans were in the top eight, with Tech 3 Yamaha duo Colin Edwards and Ben Spies sixth and eighth, split by the second works Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso. Spies was another man to fall late in the session.

Aleix Espargaro was an impressive ninth on the Pramac Ducati, followed by the two Gresini Hondas.

Hiroshi Aoyama completed 26 laps for Interwetten Honda on his return after a two-month lay-off with back injuries, and was 16th ahead of LCR Honda's Randy de Puniet, another man still recovering from an injury.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             1m40.884s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             1m41.109s  + 0.225s
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             1m41.405s  + 0.521s
 4.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              1m41.421s  + 0.537s
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             1m41.623s  + 0.739s
 6.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      1m41.664s  + 0.780s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              1m41.683s  + 0.799s
 8.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      1m41.722s  + 0.838s
 9.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      1m41.992s  + 1.108s
10.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      1m42.147s  + 1.263s
11.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      1m42.268s  + 1.384s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       1m42.368s  + 1.484s
13.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      1m42.600s  + 1.716s
14.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             1m42.696s  + 1.812s
15.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             1m42.790s  + 1.906s
16.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  1m42.874s  + 1.990s
17.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          1m42.987s  + 2.103s