Valentino Rossi seems to be suffering from the injuries sustained during his crash in the 1st Free Practice session yesterday. He did not emerge onto the track until 20 minutes into the session, where he rode 3 laps before returning. He came out once more, towards the end of the session very briefly, apparently returning straight back to the pits. Most disturbing of all for the Italian world champion must be his lap times: his fastest lap time was a 1:58.614. That's 21 seconds slower than the fastest lap this session.
That the Yamaha wasn't to blame was shown by Colin Edwards, who set that fastest lap, a 1:37.215, the fastest time set at the new Assen track so far. This is getting very close to the time of 1:36 which the Ohlins engineers predicted the MotoGP bikes should be capable of at Assen. The finish order:
1. Edwards
2. Hayden
3. De Puniet
4. Stoner
5. Nakano
6. Pedrosa
7. Tamada
8. Hopkins
9. KRJR
10. Vermeulen
11. Melandri
12. Checa
13. Ellison
14. Hofmann
15. Capirossi
16. Cardoso
17. Silva
18. Rossi
No Elias as he returned to Spain yesterday. Less than 1 second covers the first 9, and less than 1.6 seconds covers Edwards to Hofmann.
