Casey Stoner leads the final Free Practice session for French GP - MotoGP News
Repsol Honda rider, Casey Stoner, has bagged all three free practice sessions in scintillating fashion and he will be running at the qualifiers in full swing after the final FP session for the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France.
The Aussie has claimed two pole positions, the first with a victory in the season opener on Losail circuit in Qatar and the second at the Portuguese round.
He led the 45 minutes session for most of the time but in the final minutes, Marco Simoncelli of San Carlo Honda Gresini team galloped to the front, clocking the fastest time. In a few moments, Stoner pushed back the young Italian to second place, with a
gap of 0.260 seconds in his final lap of the last session. The Australian rider was slightly slower than his own best lap time of Friday’s sessions.
Stoner’s second team-mate, Andrea Dovizioso, was following Marco Simoncelli being the third fastest on the clock, with a gap of 0.429 seconds from Stoner. Third team-mate, Dani Pedrosa, was further down on fourth place with a further gap of 0.730 seconds.
These were the only riders who were within a gap of seconds’ reach, from the 2007 World Champion, Casey Stoner.
Nicky Hayden from Ducati Team with an unexpectedly fourth place in Friday’s session, was back to be the fastest Desmosedici GP11 rider, this time securing fifth place on the time sheet.
2010 World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo, was disappointingly not among the top five riders. Despite having one victory and two podiums in three rounds of the season, he was not able to perform up to the level of RCVs. Lorenzo gave a best lap time of 1: 35.051
seconds on the clock.
1 27 Casey STONER (AUS) Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'33.815 18 18 287.8
2 58 Marco SIMONCELLI (ITA) San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1'34.075 19 20 0.260 0.260 277.3
3 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO (ITA) Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'34.244 16 22 0.429 0.169 285.6
4 26 Dani PEDROSA (SPA) Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'34.545 7 20 0.730 0.301 273.8
5 69 Nicky HAYDEN (USA) Ducati Team DUCATI 1'34.954 21 21 1.139 0.409 277.8
6 1 Jorge LORENZO (SPA) Yamaha Factory Racing YAMAHA 1'35.051 22 22g 1.236 0.097 279.3
7 46 Valentino ROSSI (ITA)Ducati Team DUCATI 1'35.280 22 22 1.465 0.229 286.1
8 5 Colin EDWARDS (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'35.281 7 19 1.466 0.001 274.5
9 11 Ben SPIES (USA) Yamaha Factory Racing YAMAHA 1'35.302 12 25 1.487 0.021 284.0
10 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW (GBR) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YAMAHA 1'35.442 11 21 1.627 0.140 288.8
11 7 Hiroshi AOYAMA (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1'35.645 22 22 1.830 0.203 286.9
12 17 Karel ABRAHAM (CZE) Cardion AB Motoracing DUCATI 1'35.799 23 23 1.984 0.154 285.0
13 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA (SPA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 1'35.979 21 22 2.164 0.180 276.1
14 14 Randy DE PUNIET (FRA) Pramac Racing Team DUCATI 1'36.091 6 17 2.276 0.112 278.3
15 8 Hector BARBERA (SPA) Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP DUCATI 1'36.268 21 22 2.453 0.177 275.8
16 65 Loris CAPIROSSI (ITA) Pramac Racing Team DUCATI 1'36.370 21 21 2.555 0.102 273.1
17 24 Toni ELIAS (SPA) LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 1'36.467 21 21 2.652 0.097 277.7
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