Stoner Dominates Second Practice At Phillip Island

Casey Stoner - Photo Credit: MotoGP.com

Casey Stoner looked in ominous form during second practice for the Australian Grand Prix, setting the fastest time of all before a devastating long run which no other rider got close to. The Australian completed 18 laps in total with the fastest, a 1:30.535 putting him three tenths ahead of Marco Simoncelli.

Aside from his fastest time though, Stoner set six more laps in the 1m30 bracket with two more in the low 1m31 range, filling him with optimism ahead of Sunday's race. The championship leader also set seven laps quicker than Simoncelli's fastest effort with the Italian blotting his copybook by crashing for the second consecutive session.

Jorge Lorenzo dropped from second in the morning to third in the afternoon after failing to beat his FP1 time but Ben Spies found a third of a second in the sister Yamaha M1 to finish fourth. Dani Pedrosa remained strangely subdued in fifth while Hiroshi Aoyama put in an excellent lap to take sixth.

Randy de Puniet was the quickest Ducati after setting a 1:31.670 on the Pramac machine with the factory riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi down in 11^th and 13^th respectively. Rossi was languishing in 15^th before a last gasp effort dragged him up the order but the Italian will surely have to rely on some mixed Melbourne weather to challenge for a record sixth Australian GP victory.

Behind de Puniet, Alvaro Bautista finished eighth for Rizla Suzuki ahead of Colin Edwards who couldn't reach the heady heights of FP1. The American's morning time was still good enough for fourth in the combined classification, splitting the factory Yamahas.

Like teammate Pedrosa, Andrea Dovizioso was another underperformer in tenth while his future teammate Cal Crutchlow finished between the factory Ducatis in 12^th.

Iveco Australian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Result