Stoner dominates in practice

6:20pm Saturday 19th July 2008

Casey Stoner once again dominated the first day of practice for the United States GP as the MotoGP world champion finished fastest in both sessions on Friday.

The Australian dominated throughout on the opening day and set a new circuit record at Laguna Seca in the afternoon with a one minute 21.826 seconds lap. It bettered the previous record by 0.140sec set by Stoner himself in 2007.

In the opening session Stoner already set the fastest-ever lap at the circuit when he recorded a time of 1:21.915s while Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi and Honda Gresini's Shinya Nakano finished second and third respectively.

Stoner then improved on that time in the second session as he finished eighth tenths of a second faster than Honda's Nicky Hayden while Rossi took third.

Alex de Angelis improved to fourth in the afternoon session while Chris Vermeulen and Shinya Nakano took fifth and sixth respectively.

Dani Pedrosa, who is still suffering from injuries he picked up from his Sachsenring crash last week, climbed to 15th place despite riding in pain.

It was the fourth race in succession that Stoner has been fastest in both sessions and on the previous three occasions the Ducati rider has gone on to win the race on Sunday.

Stoner is looking to close the 20-point gap that separates himself and current world championship leader Rossi and has eight races remaining in which to stop the Italian winning his eighth world title.

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