It may be considered a Yamaha track, but Le Mans so far has become Honda’s home and in this morning’s FP3 the situation was still the same, with a devasting Casey Stoner still leading a bevy a RC212V’s.
The Repsol Honda rider easily layed down another series of laps in the low 1.
34’s and finished the session with a final last lap lunge of 1.
33.
815.
Marco Simoncelli took the second spot with several good runs, but it was his last lap and on soft tires that propelled him into second and tightening the gap from the Australian, but he’ll be worrying about fuel consumption during Sunday’s race.
Andrea Dovizioso took third, besting his Friday’s time by more than half a second and he was followed by Dani Pedrosa who stopped earlier than expected suffering from his arm problems.
Nicky Hayden in another lunge was fifth, albeit with a tow from a frustrated Lorenzo ended up ahead of his more titled team mate Valentino Rossi who was only seventh and 1.
465s from Stoner.
Besides the Ducati’s being in their usual troubles, what we didn’t expect to see was Jorge Lorenzo still suffering.
The Spaniard finished sixth and that important step that he was looking for hasn’t shown up at least in this practice and Rossi was a little more than 2 tenths from the reigning World Champion.
Closing out the top ten were three Yamaha M1’s with Colin Edwards just 0.
001s from the Italian Ducatista followed by Ben Spies and Cal Crutchlow.
MotoGP Le Mans FP3 results:01- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC212V – 1’33.
81502- Marco Simoncelli – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC212V – + 0.
26003- Andrea Dovizioso – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC212V – + 0.
42904- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC212V – + 0.
73005- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Marlboro Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 1.
13906- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing Team – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.
23607- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Marlboro Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 1.
46508- Colin Edwards – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.
46609- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing Team – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.
48710- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.
62711- Hiroshi Aoyama – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC212V – + 1.
83012- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 1.
98413- Alvaro Bautista – Rizla Suzuki MotoGP – Suzuki GSV-R – + 2.
16414- Randy De Puniet – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 2.
27615- Hector Barbera – Mapfre Aspar Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 2.
45316- Loris Capirossi – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 2.
55517- Toni Elias – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC212V – + 2.
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