Stoner fastest in MotoGP practice

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Stoner fastest in MotoGP practice

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MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner is fastest in practice for the Portuguese MotoGP.

05 May,2012 05:36 pm

MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner of Australia was fastest in practice on Friday (May 4) for Sundays Portuguese grand prix.Britains Scott Redding and local hero Miguel Oliveira set the pace in Moto2 and Moto3 respectively.After a wet morning session the track dried out and Honda rider Stoner set a best time of 1 minute 38.396 seconds.That put him 0.321 of a second ahead of American Ben Spies on a Yamaha.Third fastest was another Yamaha rider, Cal Crutchlow of Britain, who clocked 1:38.742.They were followed by three Spaniards: Stoner´s teammate Dani Pedrosa; Jorge Lorenzo on a Yamaha; and Honda rider Álvaro Bautista.Stoner said afterwards: Oh, so far, so good. You know, we didnt get very much this morning. We pretty much just went out there to, you know, give the bike a little bit of a run and check where the wet patches were and unfortunatley we had a day of no more rain and quite a lot of wind; the track didnt really dry up too much more.Scott Redding clocked 1:41.775 on his Kalex in Moto2, beating Spains Marc Marquez on a Suter by 0.203.Third fastest was Swiss rider Tom Lüthi, also on a Suter. in 1:42.176.The next three fastest in Moto2 were 2010 world champion Suter rider Toni Elías of Spain; his compatriot and Jerez winner Pol Espargaró on a Kalex; and another Briton, Bradley Smith, riding a Tech 3.Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira on a Suter Honda was fastest -- just -- in Moto3 practice with a time of 1:48.497.Sandro Cortese of Germany pushed his KTM to within 0.014 and third fastest was Spains Luis Salom on a Kalex KTM in 1:48.879.Next came pre-season favourite Maverick Viñales of Spain on an FTR Honda; Frenchman Alexis Masbou on a Honda; and another FTR Honda rider, Romano Fenati of Italy.