The Italian rider from Yamaha did not make a huge impression throughout the 90-minute session, being consistently slower than teammate Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati's Casey Stoner until the final few minutes. Just when everybody though the Australian would easily emerge on top of FP1, Rossi improved his time to a stunning 1:34.402, more than one tenth of a second quicker than Stoner.
Stoner managed great lap times throughout the session, but he eventually had to settle for second place, being unable to respond to Rossi's flying lap late in the afternoon. He was consequently sandwiched by the two Yamaha riders, being faster than Lorenzo by 0.034 seconds. The winner of the Spanish GP was on top of the timing reports for the majority of the day, but dropped two positions in the final 20 minutes.
Fourth and fifth overall in the practice charts were the two Honda riders Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa, with the former being more than three and a half tenths of a second faster than the latter.
Colin Edwards piggybacked on his good results at Le Mans in recent years and scored the 6th best time of the day, ahead of Ducati's Nicky Hayden and his American teammate Ben Spies. The reigning World Superbike champion was actually the last rider to finish the day within one second from Rossi, while the Top 10 was completed by Pramac Ducati's Aleix Espargaro and Gresini Honda's Marco Melandri.
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