The practice sessions for the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar continued on Friday and by the end of the second MotoGP™ run Casey Stoner was the fastest rider, having topped the previous day's first outing, with Jorge Lorenzo a close second and Andrea Dovizioso completing the top three.
Friday's action at Losail began with the MotoGP bikes returning to the track, as the premier class undertook its second practice beneath the floodlights. Winds throughout the day continued to be felt as the 45-minute practice got underway, but by the end of the session the conditions had not prevented Casey Stoner from getting under 1'56” to set a fastest lap of 1'55.960.
The Repsol Honda rider, who topped Thursday's first practice too, was followed on the timesheet by Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing), whose effort of 1'56.174 was by far the closest to the Australian. Andrea Dovizioso, on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine, placed himself third with a time of 1'56.648, although he was 0.688s off Stoner.
Less than 0.2s separated positions four to eight, with Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing), Héctor Barberá (Pramac Racing), Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda), Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) and Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) closely bunched in a tight group. Pedrosa returned to the track to set his best time after a crash at Turn 9 which occurred 15 minutes into the session.
Rookie Stefan Bradl's integration to the premier class continued to gather impressive pace as the LCR Honda rider timed in ninth fastest, with Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) again in 10th spot as the Italian continues to seek an improvement with the hard tyre.
Colin Edwards (NGM Mobile Forward Racing) took the top CRT spot in the order with a best time of 1'58.801, just 0.144s ahead of Thursday's quickest CRT man Randy de Puniet on the Power Electronics Aspar Aprilia machine.
The MotoGP bikes will be back on track at 8.55pm local time for the third and final practice, prior to Saturday's qualifying session.
source: MotoGP Official
