Stoner shines in Saturday morning FP3

With sunshine and a significantly less slippery track than the wet outings on Friday, the MotoGP field set out to take advantage of the good conditions with Repsol Honda’s Stoner moving to the top of the field with a fast lap of 1’32.619 set on his 14th of 18 laps. The Australian’s time was nearly half a second quicker than that of team mate Dani Pedrosa, who placed second with a best lap of 1'33.282.

Randy de Puniet (Pramace Racing) had another strong showing after ranking 7th in the combined times on Friday, taking the third spot in the session. The Frenchman was four tenths off Pedrosa and 1.124s behind the time set by newly crowned World Champion Stoner.

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) went fourth quickest with a time of 1’33.929, a margin of 0.048s ahead of Ben Spies in fifth. Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) claimed sixth fastest in the times with a 1’34.268, four hundredths quicker than the Rizla Suzuki of Álvaro Bautista.

Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) was eighth followed by the Ducati of Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar) and Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini), the Japanese rider completing the top ten times.