Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo took charge of the Sepang MotoGP test timesheets on day two, setting the fastest lap so far with a 1’59.963 and is the only man under the magic 2’00 mark so far as he continued to evaluate electronic setups.
Lorenzo set his quickest time early when the track and air temperatures are much cooler. He was fastest out of the box and set his time on the 19th lap of 56.
But the former world champion was chased hard by Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, who set his quick time on only lap six. The Italian was only 0.052s slower than Lorenz p the hybrid GP14.3 which only differs slightly, he says, from the bike Ducati wheeled out at Valencia before the winter ban.
Yesterday’s quickest man and reigning champ Marc Marquez has narrowed his choice of RC213V setups down to two but couldn’t match title rival Lorenzo. He went faster than his, and the overall, best from yesterday with a 2’00.146 but had a late, light crash at turn eight.
Team-mate Dani Pedrosa sits in fourth place, still evaluating three versions of the RC213V. Despite difficult track conditions late on, he managed to set a 2’00.260 on his 50th lap of 52.
Andrea Iannone, on the second works Desmosedici, was fifth proving whatever it is that Gigi Dall’Igna has done to the GP14.3 it is working for both riders. He was only four-tenths down on Lorenzo and ahead of Valentino Rossi.
The Doctor was almost a three quarters of a second behind his team-mate and also four-tenths off his pace from yesterday but said last night they had quite a few small changes to try today, only lapping in the 2’00 bracket five times compared to Lorenzo’s 13 and Marquez’ 15.
Pol Espargaro was a further three-tenths behind Rossi and walked away from a crash with Cal Crutchlow fractionally slower in eighth. Bradley Smith was ninth with Aleix Espargaro on the Suzuki in tenth. The Japanese manufacturer has apparently cured their reliability issues but now need to find some power.
Stefan Bradl is easily the quickest of the Open class bikes, sticking the Forward Yamaha in 11th but 1.5s off the pace while Scott Redding, on the Marc VDS works RC213V, is still struggling a little, sitting in 14th.
Jack Miller bounced back from a big crash to finish the day in 23rd but looks like he is trying way too hard to find a laptime. He ended one place ahead of Eugene Laverty but four behind Nicky Hayden on the identical RC213V-RS.
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