Stoner, Lorenzo and Simoncelli lead rainy warm up

Sunday, 12 June 2011

Casey Stoner lead his Repsol Honda machine in a dreary MotoGP warm up session ahead of the AirAsia British Grand Prix race on Sunday. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) followed the Australian by 0.428s, with Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Team) 1.100s behind the top time in the warm up session set by Stoner.

Light rain and mist made for a significantly slower MotoGP warm up session than the previous day’s times, with Stoner posting a fastest time of 2’19.071s in the session, compared to 2’02.020 of his pole setting time yesterday.

Lorenzo and Simoncelli, who sit respectively third and second on the starting grid, finished second and third in warm up, ahead of Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) in fourth and Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) in fifth position.

Alvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki), Karel Abraham (AB Cardion Motoracing), Valentino Rossi (Ducati), Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Toni Elias (Honda LCR) completed the top 10 warm up times.

Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) fell victim to the poor conditions, completing only 4 laps before crashing with six minutes left in the session. He was followed by Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team), who lost the front end of his Desmosedici GP11 in the same corner as the Frenchman in the last minute of the session. Both riders were unhurt.