Monday, 04 July 2011 12:20 by rm

Who ever said that test sessions were boring?  Despite the warm temperatures at Mugello, Casey Stoner and Karel Abraham saw fit to heat things up even further, nearly coming to blows in the pit lane.

It all started out on track, where Karel was waiting for Casey so he could follow the Australian around for a few laps.  But as the Honda rider was overtaking his Ducati counterpart, the two made contact; neither of them crashed, but the coming together was sufficient to leave a few visible scratches on the RC212V.

Things then escalated in the pit lane, where an angry Abraham promptly marched over to the HRC garage to confront Stoner. A heated verbal exchange broke out, with both riders accusing one another of wrong doing, and eventually their respective teams had to intervene to separate the two.

Abraham seemed to feel that Stoner deliberately moved over to cause the contact, while Casey lamented the Czech rider's habit of waiting around on track for a tow.  Things finally calmed down after a few minutes had passed, with Karel finally going back to his garage, still looking infuriated.

This isn't the first time the HRC rider has had a run-in with a colleague out on track.  There was the recent incident at Le Mans with Randy De Puniet (after which the Australian was fined), as well as several past cases of Stoner making demonstrative gestures to voice his displeasure with other riders.

Test Results as of 12noon:

1. Stoner (Honda) 1’48.533 (giri 17/19)

2. Simoncelli (Honda) 1’48.547 (giri 18/18)

3. Dovizioso (Honda) 1’48.703 (giri 20/26)

4. Pedrosa (Honda) 1’49.015 (giri 25/26)

5. Abraham (Ducati) 1’49.360 (giri 31/32)

6. De Puniet (Ducati) 1’49.525 (giri 23/36)

7. Bautista (Suzuki) 1’49.789 (giri 26/32)

8. Aoyama (Honda ) 1’50.026 (giri 21/28)

9. Barbera (Ducati) 1’50.233 (giri 13/14)

10. Guintoli (Ducati) 1’53.083 (giri 20/21)

11. Kallio (Suter-BMW) 1’56.135 (8/8)