Stoner makes impressive return

Casey Stoner marked his return to the FIM MotoGP World Championship with the fourth-fastest time in practice as Jorge Lorenzo topped the timesheets in Estoril.

Marlboro Ducati rider Stoner, 23, has missed the last three rounds of the championship as he recovered from the mystery illness which had blighted his season but looked back to near his best in Portugal.

Doctors put Stoner's fatigue problems down to low blood pressure and a lack of sodium but he proved competitive from the start ahead of Sunday's race.

Lorenzo lapped the circuit in a time of one minute 37.185 seconds aboard his Fiat Yamaha, with Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa second with a best lap of 1:37.544.

Reigning champion and series leader Valentino Rossi was third, with Stoner and Colin Edwards rounding out the top five.

British rider James Toseland - who confirmed on Thursday that he will be leaving the series next year and returning to World Superbikes - was eighth-quickest on his Tech 3 Yamaha.

Rossi holds a 30-point lead over team-mate Lorenzo and realistically needs just to finish the remaining four races to claim his seventh premier class crown.

The Italian said: "This is quite a difficult track to come back to after a long break because the braking is very hard and it's quite stressful on the arms, but I think it will be better tomorrow.

"We have a slight problem in the balance of the bike in these hard braking areas which we need to work on tomorrow to find a way to improve; we're already quite fast but we need to close the gap a bit more so we will make the most of our time tomorrow so that we're in good shape for qualifying."