A wet fog that hovered over the Laguna Seca circuit this morning forced the AMA Superbike practice to be cancelled, but the MotoGP riders didn’t get that luxury as the third and final practice session went ahead as scheduled – despite Ben Spies asking IRTA to postpone the start of the practice for at least 30 minutes.
In these treacherous conditions only a few CRT riders (wildcard Steve Rapp, Ivan Silva James Ellison, Ivan Silva and Danilo Petrucci) braved the track in the first half hour.
The first MotoGP rider to hit the circuit was Ben Spies as the fog let up while the other riders slowly trickled out (Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa elected to sit out the session) in the last fifteen minutes to try and refine their set-ups and post their best times before this afternoon’s qualifying session, and it Jorge Lorenzo who headed the timesheets in the final minutes with 1’21″445 lap.
Following Lorenzo was his soon-to-be ex team mate Ben Spies who was more than eight tenths of a second off pace and the last rider to be within a second from the current points leader.
Nicky Hayden was third and followed by Cal Crutchlow, and Valentino Rossi, while Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista were 6th and 7th respectively.
The top CRT rider was Randy de Puniet in 8th with his Power Electronics team mate Aleix Espargaro just behind him in 9th.
Closing out the top ten was returning Karel Abraham on his satellite GP12.
Andrea Dovizioso managed only one lap that is why he is down in 20th, Ivan Silva ran off track at the Corkscrew and then crashed.
Steve Rapp managed to make it into the 107% cut off and qualified for the afternoon session, but his lap time on the debuting CRT machine was slower than his yesterday’s best time in AMA Suberbike practice with his regular Kawasaki ZX-10R machine.
To add a little gossip regarding silly season, according to Carlo Pernat, Moto2 riders Andrea Iannone and maybe Scott Redding will be testing the Ducati GP12 at Mugello next week as the Italian manufacturer wants to form a junior team next season that could run under the Marc VDS banner.
MotoGP Laguna Seca FP3 results: 01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’21.
445 02- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.
823 03- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.
243 04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.
576 05- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.
849 06- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 2.
387 07- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 2.
744 08- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 2.
953 09- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 3.
061 10- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 3.
127 11- Yonny Hernandez – Avintia Blusens – BQR MotoGP – + 3.
304 12- Mattia Pasini – Speed Master Team – ART GP12 – + 3.
799 13- Toni Elias – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 3.
993 14- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda TR003 – + 4.
838 15- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – Suter BMW – + 4.
870 16- James Ellison – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP12 – + 5.
043 17- Ivan Silva – Avintia Blusens – BQR MotoGP – + 5.
622 18- Steve Rapp – Attack Performance – Attack Performance APR – + 6.
041 19- Michele Pirro – San Carlo Honda Gresini – FTR Honda MGP12 – + 6.
333 20- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 12.
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