Lorenzo was fastest in practice during Friday's proceedings at Valencia.

Jorge Lorenzo’s hot lap of 1:32.690 at the end of the second free practice at Valencia on Friday handed the Fiat Yamaha rider the best time of the session and day, as the world champion set about preparing himself for an attempt at an eighth pole position of the season on Saturday.

“Today was a good day,” Lorenzo reflected. “We started strongly from the first moment and I am feeling so confident, plus my bike is working very well here. We need to continue like this tomorrow and make a few small steps forward with our setting.

“I am so happy to be riding at home again, in front of the Spanish fans here at Cheste as the world champion. I hope we are strong again tomorrow where I have a very special helmet to show everyone!”

Following Lorenzo on the timesheet in the afternoon was Casey Stoner, who had been the fastest rider in the morning run. The Ducati man was the only rider in the session that did not improve on his time from earlier in the day and ended FP2 at 0.314s off Lorenzo’s pace.

However, thanks to his earlier time, Stoner and the Spaniard were the only two under the 1:33 marker on Friday.

“Not too bad a day today. We had some problems over the two sessions with a small vibration in one of the bikes and we lost some time trying to work out what it was,” Stoner explained. “We changed to the other one and we started to improve the setting a little bit but we hadn’t really got enough time or laps to really improve it.

“I needed basically one more run to be happy with what we have but in general we feel quite good. We have had two sessions with very good weather so no problems. We just need to wait and see what the weather does tomorrow but if we can improve the situation of my preferred bike we would be happy.”

In third position Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was almost half a second off Stoner by the end of the session with his time of 1:33.466, with Italians Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) and Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) both within four-thousandths of a second of the American as they completed the top five.

Ben Spies (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was back on his M1 after a fall during the morning, and the American placed sixth in the order, with Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) and Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini) – who had an early run-off – in the top eight.

In unfamiliar territory in ninth position was Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha), who was almost a full second off Lorenzo’s pace. Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) completed the top 10.

Dani Pedrosa was 12th as he made a gradual improvement of almost two-tenths of a second on his morning effort whilst establishing a more comfortable feel on his RC212V.

Following up on his fastest effort from the morning Moto2 session German rider Stefan Bradl was the quickest in the second free practice, topping the timesheet with a best lap of 1:36.666 to underline his pace on the Spanish track.

The Viessmann Kiefer Racing rider, who won his first intermediate category race in the previous round in Portugal, led Julián Simón in the final order for the day by 0.181s, with Karel Abraham (Cardion ab Motoracing), Alex de Angelis (JiR Moto2) and Scott Redding (Marc VDS Racing) completing the top five and all within three-tenths of a second of the leader.

Carmelo Morales (Racing Team Germany) was a further 0.233s back in sixth position, with Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Racing), World Champion Toni Elías (Gresini Racing Moto2), Simone Corsi (JiR Moto2) and Claudio Corti (Forward Racing) completing the top 10 in the session.

Bradley Smith’s best lap of 1:40.116 made the Bancaja Aspar rider the quickest of the 125cc class, as he beat Marc Márquez to top spot on the timesheet by 0.103s.

Red Bull Ajo Motorsport rider Márquez and his only remaining title rival Nico Terol (Bancaja Aspar) were separated by 0.295s in the session, as the latter showed no repeat signs of the engine problems that had marked his first practice earlier in the day.

Efrén Vázquez (Tuenti Racing) and Pol Espargaró (Tuenti Racing) completed the top five and were the final two riders to get within a second of Smith. They were also the last two riders to break the 1:41 barrier for the day.

Sandro Cortese (Avant Mitsubishi Ajo), Adrián Martín (Team Aeroport de Castelló), Esteve Rabat (Blusens-STX), Johann Zarco (WTR San Marino Team) and Luis Salom (Stipa-Molenaar Racing) completed the top ten. Tommaso Gabrielli (Ongetta Team) had a crash early on and completed just four laps in the session.

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