2009 Brno MotoGP FP2 Result - Pedrosa Closes The Gap On Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo once again topped the timesheets at Brno during the second session of free practice, but unlike yesterday afternoon, when it was all but a runaway for the Spaniard, the competition was a lot tighter on Saturday morning. Lorenzo took an early lead, cracking straight into the 1'56s, before setting the bar at 1'56.458. Only team mate Valentino Rossi could follow at first, and the closest he could get was to within a third of a second.

But as the session entered its second half, Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa picked up the pace and started to close the gap. With 24 minutes to go, Pedrosa had cut his deficit to just 0.004 of a second, and it took Lorenzo until the final minutes of the session to respond, cutting a further 10th of a second from his time, lapping in an astonishing 1'56.331. To put that into perspective, the current pole record is 1'56.191. It is held by Valentino Rossi, who set it in 2006, on a 990cc Yamaha M1, using super-sticky qualifying tires, which were banned this year.

Rossi ended the session in 3rd place, behind Lorenzo and Pedrosa, having closed the gap a little, but still nearly half a second behind his team mate. Colin Edwards was 4th fastest, ahead of a resurgent Loris Capirossi. Mika Kallio once again won the battle of the Marlboro Ducatis, leaping ahead of his team mate Nicky Hayden with 14 minutes of the session left.

Results: