Monster Yamaha's Andrea Dovizioso thinks the potential of his satellite YZR-M1 is very high after sweeping into third place on the Sepang MotoGP fastest lap chart despite riding with recently-broken collarbone.

The former HRC poster-boy, who was frozen out of Repsol Honda at the end of last year, finished just under half a second slower than reigning champion Casey Stoner but was fractionally quicker than the works bike of Jorge Lorenzo.

“Despite the rain disrupting the first two days, this has been a really positive test and I am very happy. I did my first laps in the rain on the Yamaha and I had a very positive feeling. The engine was very smooth and I could manage the sliding but one very important area was my physical condition," said Dovizioso.

"My shoulder was much better than the first test here and this enabled me to understand the potential of the YZR-M1 machine much more. I am much more confident on the bike and I am happy with the lap time and the position and we have done a very good job understanding many things here. I like the new engine because it helps with the corner entry, and this was already a really strong point of the Yamaha.

"I did a long run of 15-laps today and it was important to learn the characteristics of the bike over a longer distance. It was really interesting to understand about tyre wear and we have some work to do but the potential of the bike is already at a very high level. Now I am really looking forward to the next test in Jerez because it is a completely different track with different temperature and this will be good experience for me to understand the bike even more.”