Casey Stoner carried on with his dominance of the German
MotoGP weekend by topping this morning's warm-up at the
Sachsenring.
The championship leader has now been fastest in every session
held so far this weekend.
On what promises to be a very hot day, the Marlboro Ducati rider
beat the two Fiat Yamahas of rivals Valentino Rossi and Colin
Edwards by 11 and 87 thousandths of a second respectively.
Stoner's teammate Loris Capirossi continued his respectable
weekend by setting the fourth fastest time, one tenth behind the
Australian. Marco Melandri was fifth fastest with his Honda Gresini,
ahead of Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden and the Kawasaki of
Randy de Puniet. John Hopkins set the eighth fastest time with his
Rizla Suzuki, followed by Hayden's teammate Dani Pedrosa in
ninth and the other Kawasaki of Anthony West rounding up the
top ten. Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen, who ultimately ended up 13th,
fell off his bike with six minutes to go on the penultimate corner
of the track, most likely on the infamous bump most riders have
been complaining about.
1. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1:22.862
2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1:22.873 + 0.011
3. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) 1:22.949 + 0.087
4. Loris Capirossi (Ducati) 1:22.963 + 0.101
5. Marco Melandri (Honda) 1:23.028 + 0.166
6. Nicky Hayden (Honda) 1:23.213 + 0.351
7. Randy de Puniet (Kawasaki) 1:23.238 + 0.376
8. John Hopkins (Suzuki) 1:23.256 + 0.394
9. Daniel Pedrosa (Honda) 1:23.454 + 0.592
10. Anthony West (Kawasaki) 1:23.565 + 0.703
11. Alex Hofmann (Ducati) 1:23.592 + 0.730
12. Carlos Checa (Honda) 1:23.613 + 0.751
13. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki) 1:23.799 + 0.937
14. Sylvain Guintoli (Yamaha) 1:23.827 + 0.965
15. Shinya Nakano (Honda) 1:23.997 + 1.135
16. Michel Fabrizio (Honda) 1:24.124 + 1.262
17. Makoto Tamada (Yamaha) 1:24.163 + 1.301
18. Kurtis Roberts (KR) 1:25.792 + 2.930
19. Alex Barros (Ducati) 1:27.387 + 4.525