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Héctor Barberá’s fastest lap saw the Pepe World Team rider top the timesheet in the opening 250cc practice session at Valencia on Friday.
A fastest lap of 1’36.185 from Héctor Barberá made him the quickest rider in Free Practice 1 at the Ricardo Tormo circuit, with Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Racing) and Marco Simoncelli (Metis Gilera) both recording top-six times.
Barberá, who beat Simoncelli to second place in Malaysia via a photo finish, was 0.317s faster than Alex Debon (Aeropuerto-Castello-Blusens), with Álvaro Bautista (Mapfre Aspar Team) registering the third-fastest lap of the session.
Aoyama, who needs just an eleventh-placed finish in Sunday’s race to secure the 2009 World title ahead of Simoncelli – regardless of where the Italian finishes – was fourth quickest around, as his best lap was just over 0.7s off Barberá’s pace.
Aoyama’s Italian Scot Racing team-mate Raffaele de Rosa followed him in the order, with Simoncelli sixth-fastest at just under a full second slower than the pace set by Barberá.
Héctor Faubel (Valencia CF - Honda SAG), Mike di Meglio (Mapfre Aspar), Ratthapark Wilairot (Thai Honda PTT SAG) and Thomas Luthi (Emmi - Caffe Latte) were all inside the top ten session times.
