Stoner steals the spotlight in MotoGP FP3

At the Losail International Circuit, the Australian again dominated practice this evening. He recorded the best time of the weekend with a 1’55:035.

It was a Repsol Honda one- two-three, with Dani Pedrosa second and Italian Andrea Dovizioso third. The Spaniard was only 0.158 off Stoner’s quickest lap, whilst Dovizioso was a further 0.705 behind.

There was a marked improvement for the current World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) as he got the edge over his team-mate Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) for the first time this weekend. He claimed the fourth quickest time and was very close to the lap time set by third placed Honda,

The top Ducati rider was Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar Team) who again produced a very strong performance in practice, finishing sixth. Ducati Team rider Valentino Rossi was eighth quickest whilst his team-mate Nicky Hayden was down in 14th.

Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) again was comfortably within the top ten, recording the seventh quickest time. Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) was ninth quickest. Loris Capirossi (Pramac Racing) produced a late surge to push his way into tenth place.

Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) had a nasty crash in the final ten minutes of the practice whilst in 16th position. He was carried off on a stretcher looking as though he had suffered an injury to his left thigh.

Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was just outside the top 10, in eleventh place. The top 14 riders were all covered by 1.551 seconds.