Submitted by David Emmett on
On the morning after announcing his retirement from the sport, Casey Stoner is back to business. In the first session of free practice at Le Mans, the Australian set the fastest time early, then led for the remainder of the session, ending nearly six tenths ahead of his Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa. Andrea Dovizioso put in a strong final few minutes to end FP1 in 3rd on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, while Ben Spies picked up the pace towards the end as well, finishing the first session of free practice in 4th. Pramac's Hector Barbera set the 5th fastest time, though he gained some speed by following Stoner around, but Barbera sneaked ahead of Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo. Cal Crutchlow finished the session in 7th, and was the last man to get within a second of Stoner.
Results:
| Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
| 1 | 1 | Casey STONER | HONDA | 1'34.321 | ||
| 2 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'34.908 | 0.587 | 0.587 |
| 3 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | YAMAHA | 1'35.065 | 0.744 | 0.157 |
| 4 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'35.202 | 0.881 | 0.137 |
| 5 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'35.213 | 0.892 | 0.011 |
| 6 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'35.239 | 0.918 | 0.026 |
| 7 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | YAMAHA | 1'35.318 | 0.997 | 0.079 |
| 8 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | HONDA | 1'35.336 | 1.015 | 0.018 |
| 9 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'35.403 | 1.082 | 0.067 |
| 10 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | DUCATI | 1'35.829 | 1.508 | 0.426 |
| 11 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | DUCATI | 1'36.291 | 1.970 | 0.462 |
| 12 | 6 | Stefan BRADL | HONDA | 1'36.500 | 2.179 | 0.209 |
| 13 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | ART | 1'36.935 | 2.614 | 0.435 |
| 14 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARO | ART | 1'37.916 | 3.595 | 0.981 |
| 15 | 54 | Mattia PASINI | ART | 1'38.140 | 3.819 | 0.224 |
| 16 | 68 | Yonny HERNANDEZ | BQR | 1'38.209 | 3.888 | 0.069 |
| 17 | 51 | Michele PIRRO | FTR | 1'38.255 | 3.934 | 0.046 |
| 18 | 77 | James ELLISON | ART | 1'38.943 | 4.622 | 0.688 |
| 19 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | IODA | 1'39.110 | 4.789 | 0.167 |
| 20 | 22 | Ivan SILVA | BQR | 1'39.729 | 5.408 | 0.619 |
| Not qualified (Out 107%) 1'40.923 | ||||||
| 7 | Chris VERMEULEN | SUTER | 1'41.398 | 7.077 | 1.669 | |
Comments
How amazing would it be
...For him to dominate all Practice and Qualifying and win every race before retiring. THAT would be going out with a bang...
1000 vs 800
I would have thought that the 1000's would be faster at Le Mans of all places with the stop & squirt nature of the track but in similar conditions to last year they are slower.
Casey Stoner
Looking for the right words but can't find anything better than:
a remarkable man.
stoner
And to think we only have another 15 rounds to witness this type of brilliance to come out of the pits and go bang chase that lap time down boys cause i can do that all weekend long no matter what setting.
Lap times
David,
A suggestion: Please list equivalent lap times from the previous season. This would give us a interesting comparison on where the bikes are - whether they've made progress or have gone backwards. I suspect Honda have gone backwards in terms of lap times; due in part to the rule changes that disadvantaged them.
Weather
A good suggestion, but one that I think is drawing a false comparison. The weather is never comparable between two weekends, and the state of the track can differ massively. Even if the weather is similar, the amount of rubber on the track from previous events - either cars or bikes, or nothing at all - can make the comparisons fairly meaningless.