Marco Simoncelli’s last minute fast lap in Friday morning’s free practice put him on top of the pack for the day, ahead of Repsol Honda riders Stoner and Dovizioso on the first day of action at the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM. Dovizioso topped a rain marred second practice session.

The top three riders were within one tenth of a second of each other in the morning session, with the Italian from Cattolica setting the fastest time of the day with a 1’48.987, while the second session was hindered by a light rain that was not enough to warrant rain tires, and yet too slippery to push for fast laps on slicks until the last five minutes, thus leaving the MotoGP field unable to make the most of the second free practice.

Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) topped the FP2 timings with a time of 1’49.272, 0.061s slower than his morning time that had put him third in the rankings. Toni Elías (LCR Honda) and Valentino Rossi (Ducati team) were second and third, with the Spaniard just under a tenth slower than his morning time and the Italian a full second and a half behind his morning time, which was cut short by mechanical problems leaving him 13th in the timings.

Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner, who did not participate in the second session of the day, posted the second and seventh fastest times of the day, respectively, with the Australian posting a time of 1’49.027 and the returning Spaniard posting a time of 1’50.104. Colin Edwards ranked sixth fastest time of the day on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 bike in FP1, while only completing 2 laps in FP2.

The fastest Yamaha of the day was Yamaha Factory Racing's Jorege Lorenzo, who set a fourth quickest time of 1’49.251 in session one, and also did not participate in the second session. Lorenzo's time was just slightly more than a tenth of a second ahead of team mate Ben Spies FP1 time, who only completed two laps in FP2.

Nicky Hayden remained the quickest Ducati of the day, whose FP1 time of 1’50.203 put him eighth. Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini) and Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) completed the top ten times of the day.