Stoner tops another practice session

The previous two sessions had seen Stoner unstoppable from the outset, but in Friday's final session he was behind his Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa until the final few minutes, when the Australian delivered a sub-lap-record 1m55.035s to go quickest by 0.158 seconds.

Andrea Dovizioso also made a last-minute improvement to complete a factory Honda one-two-three in third place, although he was 0.7s off Stoner's pace.

The Yamahas were next up, Jorge Lorenzo pushed back to fourth by Dovizioso late on, and Ben Spies completing the top five.

Hector Barbera was the fastest Ducati for the second time this weekend, hurling his Aspar machine to sixth, while the works bikes of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden were only eighth and 14th.

Colin Edwards took seventh for Tech 3 Yamaha, with his team-mate Cal Crutchlow holding on to a top-10 spot until the closing minutes when he was edged back to 11th ahead of the surprisingly slow Gresini Hondas.

The Pramac Ducatis of Randy de Puniet and Loris Capirossi claimed the final top-10 positions.

There was only one crash in the session, but it was a potentially disastrous one for Suzuki.

Its sole rider Alvaro Bautista - already struggling with an arm pump condition - crashed heavily at the penultimate corner with 10 minutes to go. He was conscious but unable to get up after the accident, appearing to be suffering from leg pain and requiring medical assistance in the run-off.

Pos  Rider             Bike/Team       Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda           1m55.035s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda           1m55.193s  + 0.158s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda           1m55.740s  + 0.705s
 4.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha          1m55.814s  + 0.779s
 5.  Ben Spies         Yamaha          1m56.003s  + 0.968s
 6.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati    1m56.266s  + 1.231s
 7.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m56.302s  + 1.267s
 8.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati          1m56.306s  + 1.271s
 9.  Randy de Puniet   Pramac Ducati   1m56.362s  + 1.327s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Pramac Ducati   1m56.434s  + 1.399s
11.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha   1m56.437s  + 1.402s
12.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Gresini Honda   1m56.517s  + 1.482s
13.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda   1m56.540s  + 1.505s
14.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati          1m56.586s  + 1.551s
15.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati  1m57.275s  + 2.240s
16.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki          1m57.601s  + 2.566s
17.  Toni Elias        LCR Honda       1m58.123s  + 3.088s