Repsol Honda Team’s Casey Stoner asserted his dominance one more time ahead of the AirAsia Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island as he went quickest in warm-up ahead of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.

Stoner set the second fastest time of the weekend in just his opening few laps, a 1.29’888, with Yamaha Factory Racing’s Lorenzo almost half a second behind. It was not all plain sailing for Stoner however, as he almost lost his bike in a slow turn, saving it with his knee. Lorenzo was putting in consistently fast laps, ahead of title rival Pedrosa, who was almost another three tenths down on the Spaniard with his Repsol Honda.


Monster Yamaha Tech 3 duo of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso ended the morning in fourth and fifth respectively ahead of LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl. It was a warm-up to forget for Ducati Team’s Valentino Rossi, who crashed early on, as did his satellite counterpart, Cardion AB Racing’s Karel Abraham. Avintia Blusens’ Australian substitute rider Kris McLaren also fell early as he pushed to qualify for the race, after being outside of the 107% mark in the preceding sessions. He did get within the time, however will not be lining up because of his crash.

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