Italian wild-man Marco Simoncelli has topped Friday practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix, despite crashing during the afternoon’s second session.
The Gresini Honda rider missed just a few minutes of the session due to the fall, and went on to back up his fastest time from Practice 1 by edging Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) by 0.06s.
Dani Pedrosa, still recovering from a collarbone injury, was the fastest of the factory Repsol Honda riders in third – just 0.003s shy of Lorenzo.
Valentino Rossi (Ducati) and Australian Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) rounded out the top five.
Alvaro Bautista returned to action today for Suzuki, having broken his leg just 41 days ago during practice for the season opener in Qatar. The Spaniard finished the day at the foot of the time sheets.
See below for the full practice result
| 1 | Marco Simoncelli | Honda | 1m37.663s | |
| 2 | Jorge Lorenzo | Yamaha | 1m37.724s | 0.061 |
| 3 | Dani Pedrosa | Honda | 1m37.727s | 0.064 |
| 4 | Valentino Rossi | Ducati | 1m38.102s | 0.439 |
| 5 | Casey Stoner | Honda | 1m38.102s | 0.439 |
| 6 | Colin Edwards | Yamaha | 1m38.203s | 0.540 |
| 7 | Karel Abraham | Ducati | 1m38.473s | 0.810 |
| 8 | Ben Spies | Yamaha | 1m38.563s | 0.900 |
| 9 | Nicky Hayden | Ducati | 1m38.596s | 0.933 |
| 10 | Héctor Barberá | Ducati | 1m38.611s | 0.948 |
| 11 | Hiroshi Aoyama | Honda | 1m38.645s | 0.982 |
| 12 | Andrea Dovizioso | Honda | 1m38.658s | 0.995 |
| 13 | Cal Crutchlow | Yamaha | 1m38.760s | 1.097 |
| 14 | Toni Elías | Honda | 1m38.912s | 1.249 |
| 15 | Loris Capirossi | Ducati | 1m39.021s | 1.358 |
| 16 | Randy de Puniet | Ducati | 1m39.137s | 1.474 |
| 17 | Alvaro Bautista | Suzuki | 1m40.173s | 2.510 |
