Sepang MotoGP Test Half Time Update

Sepang MotoGP Test – Day Two

Times as of 1400 Malaysian Time – 1700 EDST

A fair bit of action unfolded in the first four hours of the second day of MotoGP Testing at Sepang today.

Danilo Petrucci was the pacesetter on the Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati ahead of Avintia Ducati rider Hector Barbera.

Yesterday’s pacesetter Jorge Lorenzo was third quickest by a fraction over Marc Marquez and Scott Redding, the Brit on the second of the Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati machines, making it three Ducati Desmosedici in the top five.

Loris Baz crashed heavily a couple of hours in to the session. The crash happened on a straight at 290km/h when the rear of the machine locked up. It seems the culprit could have been a rear tyre failure, possibly caused by too low pressure.

Michelin then stopped the use of the softer option rear tyre as the issue was investigated, and ordered teams to raise the rear tyre pressure to 25psi from the previously recommended 21psi.

Pol Espargaro went down seemingly unhurt on his 14th lap of the day.

Jorge Lorenzo lost the front at turn five on his 17th lap and went down.

Tito Rabat was another faller towards the four hour mark, the Marc VDS Honda hitting the deck on his 28th lap of the day.

Valentino Rossi took a long time to break into the top ten today but with four hours remaining is ninth quickest just ahead of Yonny Hernandez and Casey Stoner, the Australian only putting in 17-laps so far today, his quickest time of 2m01.69 came on his fourth lap out this morning.

With riders now restricted to the hard tyre it is quite possible that very few riders will improve on the times listed below in the final four hours of testing this evening.