Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa finished day three of MotoGP testing at Sepang with the quickest time but top honours go to title rival Jorge Lorenzo, who leaves Malaysia with the fastest time overall, set in yesterday's session.
Pedrosa was chased hard by both Yamaha's Lorenzo and his own team-mate Marc Marquez today, proving again the Spanish wunderkind will be a force to be reckoned with in the 2013 season.
Lorenzo's 2'00.282 from yesterday was a little less than three-tenths faster than Pedrosa's best time, set today, while Marquez ended up only 0.081 behind his HRC stablemate and three tenths slower than the Yamaha man on a 2'00.643.
It is Lorenzo's consistency, however, which is most forboding as he was able to put together a 16-lap run in the 2'01s bracket which began with a 2'01.153 and ended on a 2'01.656 with not much deviation in between and a fastest lap of 2'01.099. However, he wasn't totally happy.
"We made a complete simulation, it was a little worse than I expected because we had some problems with the front tyre in braking; it didn't give me much confidence so I slowed my pace a little. The conditions were extreme this time so it was harder to equal the simulation we made in the first Sepang test," said Lorenzo.
Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow ended where he will want to be, fourth behind the works bikes but ahead of Valentino Rossi. The British rider set his quickest time yesterday also, a 2.00.907, which leaves him six-tenths off the pace on a satellite YZR-M1.
Rossi, meanwhile, is one place behind the former World Supersport Champion and nearly eight-tenths off his team-mate's outright pace being chased hard by Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl on the satellite but HRC-equipped Hondas.
Andrea Dovizioso was the first of the Ducatis in eighth, one place ahead of Nicky Hayden. The pair are around 1.4s off the pace, give or take a hundredth, while Britain's Bradley Smith rounds off the top ten on a 2'02.023 set yesterday.
Michael Laverty managed to get in some decent laps today after spending Tuesday and Wednesday mostly in his garage as the PBM team got to grips with the Marelli spec-ECU. He got in 24 laps today, ending with a 2'04.546, 1.5s slower than leading CRT man Randy De Puniet.
