Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi has taken charge of the timesheets at Jerez this afternoon, lapping just under half a second quicker than Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capriossi in the first MotoGP free practice session with Casey Stoner in third.
Marlboro Ducati's Stoner led for the first 20 minutes of the session until The Doctor put in a 1'41.181 lap which was followed by a lap by team-mate Jorge Lorenzo good enough to make it a Yamaha one-two with half an hour to go.
A third Yamaha, in the shape of Monster Tech3's Colin Edwards, muscled its way into second place with 24 minutes gone. The Texan lapped in a 1'40.703 but he was quickly busted down to third again as Lorenzo went quicker.
Rossi then started a run of laps which saw him drop into the 1'39s bracket. A lap of 1'39.993 followed by a 39.840 were easily fast enough to secure the Italian's place at the top of the pile while Lorenzo and Stoner fought it out for second.
Meawhile, Edwards' team-mate James Toseland slowly clawed his way up the table, parking himself in eighth place eight minutes to go, but was knocked back down to 11th by the time the session had finished. A minute later, Rossi went back out and cemented his position with a 1'39.736 as Capirossi got his hammer down and lapped in 1'40.011. Stoner finished 0.621s behind Rossi.
