Stoner Blows Em Away

Free Practice 2 shook up the order a little, but still Stoner ahead of Rossi by 1/3 of a second, followed by Capirossi and Lorenzo. Guess who was next, only slightly off the pace? None other than Bad Wind pilot Marco Melandri ... way to go Marco! And Gibernau? Um ... that would be 18th again. Qualifying Practice times blew away FP times, with Stoner taking the pole position by almost a whole half second! Then came Lorenzo another half second back, then Dovizioso, Capirossi and Edwards. With Qualifying times a whole second faster than FP 2, Melandri slipped back to 11th, even though he ran a slightly better time. And Gibernau gridded a slightly better 15th, but still more than 2.6 seconds off the pace. Only slightly ahead of Sete were Toseland and Pedrosa ... also not having a good time under the lights. The almost obvious result for tomorrow night would be the same podium as the Qualifier, with Stoner, Rossi and Lorenzo separated by small gaps, with 4 to 6 riders fighting for fourth (that's where the race'll be). But then again, you never know. The race is even later at night than the practices and qualifying, with the MotoGP start at 23.00 local time, so endurance may come into it a bit. If Rossi and Lorenzo can stay close enough to Stoner, there might be a few desperation passes that could make it interesting.