Stoner in fast form on Saturday morning

Casey Stoner led the way in the third free practice at Valencia on Saturday morning, timing in with a best lap of 1’32.664 to also mark the fastest time of the weekend so far. The Ducati Team rider topped the session by a gap of 0.281s over Dani Pedrosa, as the Australian consistently ran below the 1’33” marker.

Repsol Honda rider Pedrosa made an improvement of just under a full second on his previous best time to record the second fastest lap of the session as he joined Stoner under the 1’33” benchmark, whilst Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha) was third on the timesheet at almost half a second off the number one spot. The World Champion’s best lap of his weekend remains his FP2-topping effort from Friday afternoon.

In fourth position in the final 45-minute practice was rookie Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) who continues to impress with his consistency, whilst Ben Spies (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was in close attendance in completing the top five at just over five-hundredths of a second behind the Italian.

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda), Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda), Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) – who had an early run-off at turn ten – Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) and Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) were all inside the top ten in the session. The Italian was 0.834s off Stoner as he continued to search for a set-up on his M1 to his liking.

The MotoGP class returns to the track at 2.05pm local time for the qualifying session.