Dani Pedrosa, still searching for his first
MotoGP victory of the season, got the Sachsenring weekend off to a perfect start by leading Friday morning practice in Germany.
The Repsol Honda rider, chasing his third Sachsenring victory in a row, edged out joint title leaders
Casey Stoner and
Jorge Lorenzo on his penultimate lap of the 45-minutes, held in warm and dry conditions.
Stoner, who moved level with Lorenzo last Saturday at Assen, was quickest for most of the 45-minutes before team-mate Pedrosa moved ahead by just 0.087s.
Yamaha star Lorenzo - who lost a 25-point lead, an engine and suffered stretched ankle ligaments in the turn one Assen incident - finished 0.290s from the top.
Andrea Dovizioso, on the podium twice in the last three rounds, was the top satellite ride in fourth place (+0.565s) after moving ahead of Yamaha Tech 3 team-mate Cal Crutchlow on his final lap of the morning.
Pramac's Hector Barbera made a late climb up the order to be the top Ducati in sixth (+0.734s), at the expense of factory rider Nicky Hayden, who had been towards the sharp end for much of the session.
Alvaro Bautista, who will start from the back of the grid on Sunday after being penalised for his Assen collision with Lorenzo, was eighth best.
Local star and
MotoGP rookie Stefan Bradl steered his LCR Honda to ninth and Lorenzo's factory team-mate Ben Spies completed a top ten covered by 0.996s.
Valentino Rossi was a lowly eleventh and last of the full-time manufacturer riders, lapping 0.128s from Spies and 0.729s ahead of the top CRT of Aspar's Randy de Puniet.