Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner looked as it he was going to run away with this morning's first MotoGP free practice at Le Mans, leading by one second with five minutes of the session left before team-mate Dani Pedrosa came out and spoiled his dominance with his last run of laps.
The Australian's 16th lap saw him set a 1'34.185 which was just over a second quicker than the third Repsol man Andrea Dovizoso before Pedrosa's effort saw him hop into runner-up spot with a 1'35.122, which was still 0.937s slower than the 2007 world champion.
Stoner then responded with a 1'34.133 before Pedrosa halved the deficit to 0.568 with a 1'34.701 while Marco Simoncelli, on yet another Honda, nipped into third ahead of Dovizioso, who made sure of fourth at that point.
Pedrosa wasn't done, however, as he found another half a second with his final lap, closing the gap to a quarter of a second with a 1'34.131 while Dovizioso then demoted Simoncelli back to fourth to put three Repsol-backed bikes on a theoretical front row.
Reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo could only muster fifth fastest and is a second in arrears on a 1'35.165 while Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi is one place behind him but another three-tenths slower while hometown hero Randy De Puniet, on the satellite Pramac Ducati, is seventh and 1.5s off the pace.
Rossi's team-mate Nicky Hayden started the session brightly, sitting in fourth with 15 minutes left, but the American could find any more pace and closed out the hour in eighth, one place ahead of Britain's Cal Crutchlow in ninth.
The Monster Yamaha rookie lapped quicker than Ben Spies' factory Yamaha, which rounded out the top ten with a 1'35.743 while the second satellite Yamaha of Colin Edwards is 11th and 1.7s off the pace.
