Former MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner topped the final MotoGP free practice timesheets at Le Mans this morning and headed a Honda whitewash that saw HRC machinery in the top four slots while Jorge Lorenzo is a relative country mile off the pace.
Stoner's 1'33.815 with his final lap was enough to ensure top spot while team-mates Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa scrapped it out with the satellite-but-works Gresini bike of Marco Simoncelli. No-one else got a look in and reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo could only muster sixth, 1.2 seconds in arrears.
Simoncelli had taken top spot away from the Australian with his last lap of 1'34.075 but Stoner once again pulled a time out of the bag and went a quarter of a second faster with Dovizioso third and and Pedrosa fourth. Nicky Hayden also got his fastest in with his final circulation, going fifth fastest on a 1'34.954
Lorenzo, meanwhile, said last night that everyone else had got quicker this year and he would have to work hard. The same applies to Valentino Rossi who is a place behind his 2010 rival and nearly 1.5s slower than Stoner.
Monster Yamaha's Colin Edwards is the first of the privateer bikes in eighth and he is ahead of Ben Spies' works YZR-M1 and the second Monster-liveried bike of Cal Crutchlow who rounds out the top ten.
