Marlboro Ducati's Nicky Hayden has taken provisional second place on the front row for Sunday's Indianapolis MotoGP just fractions of a second slower than poleman Dani Pedrosa on the Repsol Honda.

Hayden set his time on the final lap of the hour-long session in very wet conditions and was only 0.155s behind Pedrosa's quickest time of 1'57.507 which the Spaniard set with 40 minutes left to go.

Pedrosa's pole position lap was set on a soaking wet track which began to dry towards the end but the Spaniard was right on the ragged edge throughout, bouncing out of the seat on a slow left-hander which was plastered in standing water.

Monster Yamaha's James Toseland was sitting pretty in fourth place for most of the session until a string of laps from Hayden, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo bumped him down to sixth at the outside of the second row. Gresini Honda's Alex De Angelis was fifth quickest with a very early lap.

Toseland's team-mate Colin Edwards spent the session gradually reducing his laptimes and finished first practice in eighth just behind Loris Capirossi, who crashed unhurt with ten minutes to go.
MotoGP debutant Aleix Espargaro, who is standing in for Mika Kallio on the Pramac Ducati, was 15th quickest and faster than his team-mate Nico Canepa. Not bad for a man who has only raced twice this year, has never ridden at Indianapolis, has never ridden a MotoGP bike before, and it was wet. He was only half a second slower than Toni Elias. Go figure.
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