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Rossi closes on Stoner in the warm-up

Casey Stoner has continued his perfect score in Qatar by also topping the warm-up, after leading every MotoGP session so far this weekend

The Ducati Marlboro rider, winner of the last two editions of the race at Losail, did not show the kind of dominance displayed in previous sessions however, with Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi just 62 thousandths of a second behind the time of 1m56.697s set by the Australian.

The rest of the field, however, saw much bigger gaps to the top two, who will start the race from the top two spots on the grid.

Andrea Dovizioso, with his Repsol Honda, managed to set the third fastest time ahead of the Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo with the factory entry and Colin Edwards on the Tech 3-backed satellite bike, but this trio was around seven tenths behind Stoner.

Honda Gresini's Alex de Angelis and Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen were around one second behind, followed by Randy de Puniet's LCR Honda and Marco Melandri's Hayate Kawasaki, with James Toseland's Tech 3 Yamaha completing the top ten.

Nicky Hayden, who is evaluating whether to take part in the race after a big shunt in qualifying yesterday, was 16th fastest with his Ducati Marlboro.

Pos  Rider             Bike      Time            Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    1m56.697s
 2.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    1m56.759s  + 0.062s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda     1m57.379s  + 0.682s
 4.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha    1m57.399s  + 0.702s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    1m57.449s  + 0.752s
 6.  Alex de Angelis   Honda     1m57.658s  + 0.961s
 7.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    1m57.700s  + 1.003s
 8.  Randy de Puniet   Honda     1m57.874s  + 1.177s
 9.  Marco Melandri    Kawasaki  1m58.097s  + 1.400s
10.  James Toseland    Yamaha    1m58.344s  + 1.647s
11.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki    1m58.361s  + 1.664s
12.  Toni Elaas        Honda     1m58.556s  + 1.859s
13.  Sete Gibernau     Ducati    1m58.878s  + 2.181s
14.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     1m58.902s  + 2.205s
15.  Mika Kallio       Ducati    1m59.129s  + 2.432s
16.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati    1m59.398s  + 2.701s
17.  Yuki Takahashi    Honda     1m59.679s  + 2.982s
18.  Niccolo Canepa    Ducati    1m59.912s  + 3.215s

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