125cc World Championship leader Mike di Meglio braved the wet in Donington Park to clock the fastest time of the morning.

The predicted rainfall at Donington Park was the one thing that Mike di Meglio´s 125cc rivals were hoping against, and the Frenchman showed why with a fastest time over a second quicker than his closest rival on Saturday morning.

Ajo Motorsport´s World Championship leading rider –who has won two races in the wet during his time in the 125cc class- stopped the clock at 1´52.674, ahead of title rival and normally aquaphobic Jack&Jones WRB man Simone Corsi. Unfortunately for Di Meglio, Corsi still holds a crucial advantage as the second qualifying session looms for the lower cylinder category stars, having taken provisional pole in the dry during the opening grid-deciding run.

After a difficult start to his home Grand Prix weekend, Bradley Smith looked comparatively more comfortable on the timesheet in third, a fact belied by a pair of crashes that will not have aided the Briton´s attempts to recover from a Catalunya tumble. He recorded a fastest time just quicker than those of Raffaele de Rosa and Gabor Talmacsi, with the latter on course for a front row start.

Nineteen crashes and some additional off-track excursions marked the session, although some had little effect on the riders. Jules Cluzel took a trip into the grass or gravel on five separate occasions, but was still able to record the sixth fastest time of the morning. Takaaki Nakagami, Sergio Gadea, Randy Krummenacher and Stevie Bonsey completed the top ten.

Simoncelli goes swimmingly in wet 250cc practice

Marco Simoncelli went round fastest in the final 250cc free practice session at Donington Park, having placed on the provisional front row on Friday.

With rain showing no sign of abating at Donington Park, the 250cc riders are facing the high probability of a wet second qualifying session for the bwin.com British Grand Prix this afternoon. As such, many turned their attentions to their race settings in the second and final quarter litre practice run.

Race pace was most encouraging for Marco Simoncelli, the winner of the past two Grands Prix and with a front row place provisionally in the bag. The Metis Gilera rider clocked a fastest time of 1´47.055 in the lunchtime session, less than a tenth of a second faster than JiR Team Scot´s Yuki Takahashi.

Pencilled in for a second row start alongside Takahashi, Repsol KTM´s Julian Simon was third quickest over half a second back.

At the scene of his best ever Grand Prix finish, Karel Abraham was only just outside the same second as Simoncelli, surprisingly the fastest Aprilia rider. Provisional poleman Alvaro Bautista was fifth in the free practice outing, ahead of the Red Bull KTM duo of Hiroshi Aoyama and series leader Mika Kallio. Fabrizio Lai and title contenders Alex Debon & Mattia Pasini rounded off the top ten.