Casey Stoner completes perfect sweep of all three free practice sessions at the US Grand Prix by lowering the lap record again on Saturday morning.

By Lynne Huntting

Fog again delayed the start of the final MotoGP free practice session on Saturday morning at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, causing a rearrangement in the AMA schedule to accommodate the AMA Superbike session.

The track fog is quirky, moving in and out between the eleven corners of the elevated 2.238-mile road course. Once line of sight was confirmed around the track, the MotoGP session started, 18 minutes late.

Casey Stoner was one of the last to go on track for the hour-long session, but like cream he rose quickly to the top, where he remained. He continued to better his times each time he went on track. The Ducati rider's best lap time was 1min 21.461secs, 0.365secs faster than his best Friday time.

Newly re-signed factory Yamaha rider, Valentino Rossi, was 0.707secs slower than Stoner in second position, followed by Shinya Nakano (San Carlos Honda Gresini), Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP), and Marco Melandri (Ducati Team).

All riders were faster than Friday's best times.

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa sat out the morning practice as he was in too much pain. He will try and qualify Saturday afternoon. Pedrosa, who now sits second in the standings after last week's accident, wants to race this weekend for the points. It has not been easy for him because of the discomfort, special splinting and bandaging of his two broken left fingers, broken wrist and sprained right ankle.

While Pedrosa only needs to use the clutch initially, he still needs his left hand to grip the bike. Pedrosa is in such pain all over his body that he has to be assisted onto his motorcycle.

Rossi, of Italy, will continue to race for the Yamaha factory team another two years. He has been with Fiat Yamaha Team for five years, and in that time won two championships, 32 races and 20 pole positions. All those plusses added to the "special motivation to take the decision to sign again for two more years."

Scot Racing Team announced Saturday that it will go it alone for the 2009 Moto GP season, with plans to be announced at the Japanese Grand Prix. This year it had joined with JiR, running Andrea Dovizioso of Italy in MotoGP and Yuki Takahashi of Japan in the 250cc class.

MotoGP Saturday qualifying will be 1:55 PM local time.