The much-anticipated first practice session of the Moto2 class took place on Friday evening, and it was RSM Team Scot rider Alex de Angelis who laid down the opening challenge to the rest of the 41-strong field (including wild card Anthony Delhalle) as the 2010 World Championship began in earnest at the Losail International Circuit.

The former MotoGP rider’s lap of 2’03.239 was over half a second faster than that of nearest rival Scott Redding (Marc VDS Racing Team), as De Angelis posted the impressive time on his 20th of 22 laps in the 60-minute session on board his Force GP210 chassis, having been consistently fast in pre-season Testing.

British rider Redding, who improved steadily throughout the lead-up to the start of the 2010 season on his Suter prototype, had led the times towards the end of the session and his best time of 2’03.834 from 19 laps placed him ahead of 125cc World Champion Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar). The Spanish rider was the third and final man under the 2’04” mark with a lap of 2’03.868, as he shot up the timesheet on the last turn on his RSV machine.

A surprise name inside the top five was that of Dominique Aegerter (Technomag-CIP). The Swiss – who timed a 2’04.067 – was followed by another rider using the Suter prototype in Stefan Bradl (Viessmann Kiefer Racing), with the German just four-hundredths of a second behind.

The top ten also included Roberto Rolfo (Italtrans STR), Alex Debón (Aeroport de Castelló-Ajo), Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing), Gabor Talmacsi (Fimmco Speed Up) and Alex Baldolini (Caretta Technology Race Dept), as all got their weekends off to promising starts.

There were minor issues for Shoya Tomizawa (Technomag-CIP), Raffaele de Rosa (Tech3 Racing) and Arne Tode (Racing Team Germany), who all had uneventful run-offs that did not result in any lasting problems.