Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner got up from a front-end crash in the final MotoGP free practice session this morning at Le Mans to top the timesheet by half a second but he was chased hard by Britain's Cal Crutchlow who put in a final lap good enough to bag second place.
Stoner lost the front on the way out of the French track's first chicane in his first crash of the year with 20 minutes of the session left to run. He came out on his second bike after making some adjustment and flew into top spot with a 1'34.269 and then bettered it with a 1'33.945 to which no-one had an answer.
Crutchlow, meanwhile, had capitalised on the Aussie's misfortune, setting the fastest time a couple of minutes later and stayed there on the satellite Monster YZR-M1 until Jorge Lorenzo got the better of him eight minutes later. He came back with two minutes left to be leading Yamaha.
Team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was also on fire, setting the third-fastest time with his last lap to edge out Lorenzo by 0.027s. Once again, San Carlo Honda's Alvaro Bautista was on good form and went into fifth with his final lap and is only half a second slower than the factory RC213V of Stoner.
Spaniard Dani Pedrosa didn't figure in the top five after half distance and was battered down to sixth when the chequered flag came out but he is still only seventh-tenths down on his team-mate while Valentino Rossi is the leading Ducati in eight and just a tenth further back.
Hector Barbera's caravan antics failed to pay off earlier on as his best lap behind Jorge Lorenzo was only good enough for eighth in the final reckoning but it was two-tenths faster than Nicky Hayden in ninth. Karel Abraham was tenth with Ben Spies languishing down the order in 11th and 1.4s off the pace.
Frenchman Randy De Puniet was the quickest of the CRT men in 13th place and 2.4s off the pace with Michele Pirro and Yonny Hernandez in third. James Ellison picked up his pace to finish 18th while Chris Vermuelen is finding his feet and reduced the gap to the leaders to 5.5s.
