Stoner leads day one at Indy

The premier class set off onto the newly paved circuit under sunny skies and high temperatures of 31 degrees (87.8F), with the 27 year old Yamaha Factory Racing rider Spies leading the majority of the second practice session of the weekend. His best time of 1’40.918 was an improvement of over two seconds from his FP1 time, though not enough to stay in front of the Repsol Honda of Stoner, whose time of 1’40.724 was fastest of the day and 2.828s quicker than his time set in the morning session.

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) who won last year’s Indianapolis GP, followed in third with a time of 1’41.205, a vast improvement over his earlier best of 1’45.192. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) also moved up significantly in the second practice outing, bettering his time by over three seconds, moving him into fourth for the day.

Andrea Dovizioso was fifth quickest in FP2 with a best time of 1'41.536, a three second improvement for the Italian from the morning, 0.163s ahead of Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) in sixth.

Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) finished in seventh with a best time of 1’41.742, followed by Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) in eighth aboard the first Ducati in the times, Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) ninth and Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing), who with 8 minutes remaining had been the fastest Ducati of the session in eighth place, posted a time of 1’42.339 to finish tenth.

Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) improved on his FP1 time by just under two seconds, a good improvement but not enough to keep him within the top ten times, moving the Italian into eleventh for the day.