Enea Bastianini got the better of Jorge Martin during the closing stages of day two for the 2024 MotoGP official pre-season test, the Italian breaking the Sepang Circuit lap record in the process.

The Ducati Lenovo Team rider lowered a fresh benchmark set by his stablemate when he turned in a 1m 57.134secs in the final hour of the second day.

Prior to this it was Martin who looked destined for a second day atop the timesheets when he emerged quickest of a flurry of quick times set shortly after green flags came out for the start of track action.

Day 2/3 - Headlines at a glance...

• ⏱️ Jorge Martin gets things underway with an early new benchmark of Sepang at the top of the session but it is Enea Bastianini who concludes things with the a lap record of 1m 57.134s
• 💥 Only falls for Pedro Acosta (T9) and Johann Zarco (T15)
• 🤏 Top fourteen riders within a second of lap record pace
• 📋 RESULTS and LAP TIMES below

With nearly every rider bettering their lap times during the first hour, Martin himself found a mammoth 0.7s over his Tuesday best, his 1m 57.273s two tenths faster than Pecco Bagnaia's 2023 Malaysian MotoGP pole-winning time.

He wasn't the only rider to find big improvements with KTM's Brad Binder, Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro and Bagnaia himself also going below the erstwhile benchmark.

However, as one of only a couple of riders not to attempt a Q2 simulation in the early minutes, Bastianini got his chance at the end of the day when the circuit was run-in, the Malaysian MotoGP winner making the most of the conditions to go better still and enjoy a welcome return to the top of the timesheets.

Though his testing form won't be entirely indicative of his current form after a year beset by injury woes, the result will be a big boost to Bastianini's confidence all the same.

With Martin, Binder, Espargaro and Bagnaia's early efforts enough to hold onto second to fifth, Fabio di Giannantonio completed the top six on the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Ducati, with stablemate following in seventh and Pedro Acosta picking up eighth despite an early fall at Turn 5/

Marco Bezzecchi had to make do with ninth but appeared to have the pace to be quicker after joining Bastianini in turning in some hot laps late on.

However, despite posting sectors that would have been good enough to make him the first MotoGP rider to dip into the 1m 56s bracket at Sepang, mistakes on his first two efforts were followed by a fall altogether on the final one.

Joan Mir completed the top ten on the best of the Hondas, though there was more attention on his team-mate Luca Marini, who was noted for putting in a particularly strong race simulation on the sister Honda RC213V.

Fabio Quartararo slipped to 11th on the timesheets but had the honour of having his Yamaha sit atop the speed charts for much of the day, seemingly confirming observations from Tuesday that the M1 will be a much quicker proposition in a straight line this year.

In addition to Acosta and Bezzecchi, Johann Zarco was the only other rider to crash but do so twice on the LCR Honda, while Marc Marquez - despite muddling down in 14th place - was by far the busiest rider of the day after completely a huge 72 laps.

Meanwhile, Michele Pirro and Lorenzo Savadori were present as substitutes for the injured Franco Morbidelli at Pramac Ducati and Raul Fernandez at Trackhouse Aprilia respectively. Cal Crutchlow is on track for Yamaha on account of the team having only two GP entries in MotoGP

2024 MotoGP Pre-Season Testing | Sepang, Official Testing Results [Combined]

Tuesday [FINAL] | Day 2 of 3 | Conditions - Sunny, Hot

Sepang Circuit | Lap Records