Australian Casey Stoner was fastest in practice today for the Red Bull Indianapolis GP at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The 2007 MotoGP champion, riding a Ducati, completed a lap of the 2.6-mile road course in 1 minute, 40.884 seconds to establish himself as the favorite to win the pole Saturday. Stoner missed several races, including Indy, last season because of an illness.
Series points leader Jorge Lorenzo was second at 1:41.109 on his Fiat Yamaha. The Spaniard is the defending Indy champion and has seven wins in 10 races this season. He has a 235-158 lead on points runner-up Dani Pedrosa. Indianapolis Star
Nicky Hayden, keen to impress his home crowd, got off to a positive start as he set the third best time but inside the final 15 minutes he went down at turn 13, a worrying moment for the Ducati Team rider as he protected the left wrist he injured at Brno. The American escaped further damage to his arm despite landing on it, and was back out on track as he held onto third spot at just over half a second off his team-mate.
Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa, who was in fast form at last year’s Indy meeting, was fourth quickest as he led his factory RC212V around in a best time of 1’41.421. That placed the Spaniard four-hundredths of a second ahead of reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi, who was fifth on his Fiat Yamaha M1.
The American presence was enforced by Colin Edwards as the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider went sixth fastest, with Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and another home favourite Ben Spies in the top eight. Rookie Spies had a crash with six minutes remaining but walked away unharmed having been the final rider to get within a second of Stoner. Motogp
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