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Stoner shrugs off Tuesday back injury to top second day of MotoGP testing at Sepang

Casey Stoner shrugged off his Tuesday back problem to set the fastest time of the second day of MotoGP winter testing at Sepang

The reigning world champion had been forced to skip day one when he hurt his back while warming up before going out for the first time. Although with a total mileage of 29 laps, he completed rather less running than his rivals today, Stoner still showed his and Honda's pace with a 2m00.895s lap.

That deposed morning pacesetter Ben Spies (Yamaha) by 0.157 seconds - although the American was briefly credited with a time 2.7s faster than anyone else due to a glitch near the end of the day.

Tuesday's fastest rider Jorge Lorenzo completed the top three on the second works Yamaha today, ahead of Stoner's Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow - who again showed very strong pace on the Tech 3 Yamaha.

Quickest Ducati was the Pramac example of Hector Barbera in sixth, with works rider Valentino Rossi slightly off his Tuesday pace in seventh position, 0.9s down on Stoner.

Alvaro Bautista (Gresini Honda), Andrea Dovizioso (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) completed the top 10).

There was some encouragement for the CRT runners as Forward's Colin Edwards used a higher-spec Suter-BMW to get the gap to the front down to 4.7s, although the Avintia-branded, BQR-run, FTR-Kawasakis continued to struggle for speed and reliability at the tail of the field.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Casey Stoner        Honda                 2m00.895s             29
 2.  Ben Spies           Yamaha                2m01.052s   + 0.157s  37
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                2m01.068s   + 0.173s  40
 4.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                 2m01.508s   + 0.613s  35
 5.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha         2m01.565s   + 0.670s  42 
 6.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         2m01.788s   + 0.893s  50
 7.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                2m01.886s   + 0.991s  44
 8.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         2m01.933s   + 1.038s  46
 9.  Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.160s   + 1.265s  42
10.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                2m02.354s   + 1.459s  41
11.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             2m02.414s   + 1.519s  41
12.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        2m02.598s   + 1.703s  66
13.  Katsuyuki Nakasuga  Yamaha                2m02.941s   + 2.046s  40
14.  Franco Battaini     Ducati                2m04.311s   + 3.416s  38
15.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     2m05.603s   + 4.708s  37
16.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m10.297s   + 9.402s  16
17.  Jordi Torres        Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m11.893s  + 10.998s   2
18.  Robertino Pietri    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m12.546s  + 11.651s   5

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