Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi threw down the gauntlet today in the opening practice session for his home Grand Prix in Mugello, the Italian dominating the session and ending up as the only rider in the 1:49s.
Rossi, who had a seven-year GP win streak at Mugello broken when he finished third in last year’s race, rode the M1 to a 1:49.751 to best his teammate Jorge Lorenzo by .36 of a second to get things rolling for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix.
Lorenzo earned pole position for last year’s race with a 1:48.987, but crashed on the sighting lap and ended up finishing second on his back-up bike.
Loris Capirossi ended up third on the Rizla Suzuki, the Italian ending up .23 of a second behind Lorenzo and almost half a second ahead of Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards, the Texan hoping to improve up on his Mugello best of fifth in the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. Cycle News
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) the highest-placing Honda at just a thousandth of a second behind Edwards.
Ben Spies impressed on his first MotoGP outing on the track by registering the sixth best time, just over two-tenths off Pedrosa. Casey Stoner, who will be looking to pull on the inspiration of last season’s race win at the circuit after his difficult opening to the 2010 campaign, had the worst possible start to the hour-long practice when he experienced a run-off at Turn 15.
The Australian had to take his Desmosedici GP10 down into the gravel to avoid hitting the fence, and eventually placed seventh in the session as he completed 15 laps, the fewest of the field.
Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda), Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) and Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) all set top-ten times as well, the rookie running off at Bucine early on just moments after Stoner had, and without consequence.
Rizla Suzuki rookie Álvaro Bautista made his return after sitting out the last race at Le Mans due to his recovering collarbone, and was clearly still feeling some discomfort with a best time just over 5.5s off that of Rossi. MotoGP
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