Despite crashThe second free practice session for the MotoGP riders on day one at the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya saw Valentino Rossi top the timesheets as he improved on his morning best, but the Italian was ultimately unable to improve on Dani Pedrosa's first free
practice effort of 1'43.099s.
Repsol Honda's Pedrosa was almost half a second quicker than nearest challenger Casey Stoner in the morning outing, but Rossi cut that gap to 0.214s in the second session - to make him the second fastest Friday rider overall - with a lap of 1'43.313, which was an improvement of 0.392s on his own morning best.
Third fastest overall today, after Pedrosa and Rossi, was the second quickest participant in FP2, John Hopkins, who with a time of 1'43.389s on his last lap improved on his earlier best by 0.216s, to leave him 0.290s off Pedrosa's best at the conclusion of the day.
Ducati Marlboro's Stoner ended the day as the fourth quickest participant thanks to his morning time but was fifth fastest in the afternoon, while Honda Gresini's Toni Elias also recorded his best time in the morning and was fifth fastest overall, but the fourth quickest in FP2.
Stoner's Ducati colleague Loris Capirossi meanwhile was sixth on the combined timesheet courtesy of his morning time, but off the pace in the afternoon as the 14th quickest rider.
Given the pace demonstrated by Pedrosa in both sessions - despite his crash hampered his second outing - his Repsol Honda colleague Nicky Hayden will again be disappointed to have ended the day 14th on the combined timesheets and 12th in the afternoon.
The MotoGP riders return to the Catalunya track tomorrow at 10am before qualifying for the traditional Saturday afternoon qualifying session for the seventh Grand Prix of the year gets underway at 1.50pm.
DORNA / CAPSIS International
