Stoner leads opening practice

The session started 20 minutes late due to an accident in the preceding 125cc session that spilt a substantial amount of fuel on the track.

Stoner, who can clinch the 2007 title this weekend if he out-scores nearest rival Valentino Rossi by 15 points, moved to the head of the field with a 1:38.105 lap just over halfway through the session.

Rossi had dominated until that point, and retained second place, 0.312 seconds behind Stoner.

Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet moved to third late in the session, beating Rossi's Yamaha teammate Colin Edwards by one thousandth of a second.

LCR Honda rider Carlos Checa ran in the top three early on before ending the hour in fifth, ahead of Suzuki's John Hopkins and Repsol Honda pair Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden.

Konica Minolta's Shinya Nakano is under pressure this weekend, having been warned that he must improve his performance if he wants to retain his ride for 2008. But the made a promising start to the meeting by taking ninth.

Marco Melandri completed the top ten on the Gresini Honda.

Tech 3 Yamaha rider Makoto Tamada took an impressive 12th place, while Chris Vermeulen was only 13th - but just under one second covered third to 14th positions.

Pos  Rider             Make           Time
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  1:38.105
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (M)  1:38.417  + 0.312
 3.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  (B)  1:38.676  + 0.571
 4.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  1:38.677  + 0.572
 5.  Carlos Checa      Honda     (M)  1:38.995  + 0.890
 6.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    (B)  1:39.036  + 0.931
 7.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     (M)  1:39.048  + 0.943
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  1:39.142  + 1.037
 9.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (M)  1:39.143  + 1.038
10.  Marco Melandri    Honda     (B)  1:39.288  + 1.183
11.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    (B)  1:39.446  + 1.341
12.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    (D)  1:39.461  + 1.356
13.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  1:39.511  + 1.406
14.  Toni Elias        Honda     (B)  1:39.641  + 1.556
15.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  1:39.817  + 1.712
16.  Alex Hofmann      Ducati    (B)  1:39.827  + 1.722
17.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    (D)  1:39.928  + 1.823
18.  Alex Barros       Ducati    (B)  1:40.110  + 2.005
19.  Kurtis Roberts    KR        (M)  1:43.011  + 4.906