Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Andrea Iannone ended the second day of the Sepang pre-season test on top of the time sheets, while Yamaha debuted a radical new fairing with concealed winglets.
The weather has played havoc with the MotoGP paddock since the private manufacturer test last week, and today was no different with the opening hours of the session completely lost to a wet track.
Thankfully, the Malaysian circuit dried out sufficiently by the time the lunch break had finished and the field were able to crack on with their programmes for today.
Iannone enjoyed a positive first day on the new GSX-RR on Monday, and was once again looking settled on the bike today. The Italian rider was particularly happy with Suzuki’s new engine, and used it to great effect in the closing minutes of the session to go top of the pile with a lap of 1m59.452s, beating Casey Stoner’s headline-grabbing time from yesterday.
Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales put Iannone’s time under pressure right at the death but missed out by four tenths of a second. The Spaniard completed 51 laps today as he continued to work on end-of-race pace.
All eyes were on his team-mate’s side of the garage, however, as Valentino Rossi trialled Yamaha’s radical new fairing which features winglets housed within it. The ban on the aerodynamic devices pioneered by Ducati in 2015 was expected to breed clever new solutions around it, though it was thought that we may not see these designs until Qatar.
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Anyone notice something different about @ValeYellow46’s @YamahaMotoGP M1? #SepangTest https://t.co/mGeJQQPI71 (@MotoGP)
Rossi ended the day fourth fastest on a 2m00.254s, with Aspar’s Alvaro Bautista once again going strong on the GP16 Ducati a few hundredths ahead in third. Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Johann Zarco made a gain of a second in laptime today to end up a respectable fifth.
Avintia’s Hector Barber held top spot for a short while on his GP16, but was eventually deposed to sixth. Behind him came both factory Ducati riders, with Jorge Lorenzo just four hundredths away from his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso today.
The Spaniard found the going tough on the GP17 yesterday, admitting that the braking style he was using on the Yamaha was not suited to the Desmosedici. Languishing down in 17th and well over a second off the pace, Lorenzo worked in this area today and seems to have made a breakthrough.
Jonas Folger was ninth fastest on the second of the Tech 3 machines, the German, like his team-mate, just putting as many laps as possible on the Yamaha as they gear up for their MotoGP debut in March. Honda’s Marc Marquez brushed off a late mechanical issue that left him stranded at Turn 12 to round out the top 10, as he continued to test various engine maps on the new version of the ‘big bang’ motor.
Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro endured a tricky second day of running on his RS-GP. The Spaniard encountered chatter issues early in his run, and this eventually led to a small crash at the fast left-hander of Turn 5. Unscathed, he returned to track on his second bike to go 11th quickest on a 2m00.609s.
LCR’s Cal Crutchlow continued to evaluate parts for HRC in 12th, with Alex Rins on the second Suzuki, Dani Pedrosa on the sister factory RC213V and Pramac’s Scott Redding completing the top 15 having slid off his GP16 at the final corner earlier in the day.
The factory KTM duo of Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith continued to put the miles on the RC16. The Spaniard was 20th on the time sheets on a 2m01.525s having completed 37 laps, with Smith a second adrift in 25th having managed 30 laps.
Marc VDS Honda’s Tito Rabat was taken to the local hospital following a crash at Turn 7 in the final hour of the session. The Spaniard will undergo X-ray examinations on a suspected knee injury.
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