Qatar FP2 Times - MotoGP 2007

The second free practice session in Qatar saw a similar pattern tot the first. Yamaha continues to lead the way, with Valentino Rossi setting the fastest time this afternoon, rather than Colin Edwards. Much more worrying for the competition, however, is that Rossi set the fastest time not on a soft qualifying tire, but during a long run of 12 laps on what presumably must be race tires. During that long run, he clocked several 1'56 laps, which bodes ill for Rossi's own lap record in the race on Saturday: the top 10 times set on Thursday were all under Rossi's record time, and all 10 of those times were almost certainly set on race tires.

Casey Stoner, 2nd in the morning's practice, slipped to 3rd on the Ducati, ahead of John Hopkins on the Suzuki. Hopkins is still in considerable pain from his broken scaphoid, yet still managed to take the 4th fastest time. One remarkable fact is that Hopkins only used 2 rear tires today, putting the fast times into some kind of perspective.

Among the Hondas, Carlos Checa is the fastest rider on the LCR Honda in 5th, ahead of Repsol's Dani Pedrosa and Gresini Hanspree's Marco Melandri. It looks like the Honda is still lagging behind the other marques, and has a bit of catching up to do. This is especially true for the reigning World Champion Nicky Hayden, who only managed to clock the 15th fastest time this afternoon. That this was one place better than this morning is very small consolation indeed.

Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet and Pramac d'Antin's Alex Hofmann slipped down the rankings, to 13th and 16th respectively, while Hofmann's team mate Alex Barros made a good jump up the standings to set 11th fastest.

Practice, and qualification, continue tomorrow.