Marquez fastest at Sepang 2

After three days of intense testing at Sepang in Malaysia from February 23-25, it was reigning MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez who laid down the early marker for the rest of the paddock.

The weather has played a major part in each teams testing plans, with the searing heat during the day meaning that realistically riders could only really set flying laps within a small time frame when the sun wasn't at its peak. Most teams focused on developing the bike and finding their riders ideal set ups over the first two days, while today provided a chance for the teams to show their true pace this morning, before running race simulations this afternoon.

Repsol Honda will be delighted by the way Marquez, whose first day was ruined by a brake problem, responded to dominate the last two days. For the Spaniard, his main focus was on evaluating different chassis types, and tweaking the set ups on each to find the one he prefers.

He headed the timesheet’s for the last two days, with his best lap of 1:59.115 putting him over 0.3 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. No-one can accuse the reigning champion of resting on his laurels on the final day either, as he put in more laps than anyone else (73) on the final day. This included a stint of 19 laps where he managed 16 laps under the 2:01 barrier, and will leave Malaysia knowing that he is once again in a very strong position to retain his MotoGP title.

Dani Pedrosa showed good pace on day one, finishing second on the timesheets, but since then he had struggled to make much more progress until late on today when he managed to get in a flying lap just before the day ended. The two-time 250cc world champion managed to improve by over half a second during the test, and was one of the only riders to improve his time in the afternoon, finally breaking the two-minute mark to finish in seventh.

Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo arrived at Sepang 2 in the best shape of his life, according to the rider, after a gruelling off-season training regime. All that work appears to have paid off as he was able to put in a huge number of laps on each day, despite the heat. Lorenzo not only finished second overall, setting his fastest time this morning just 0.3 seconds off Marquez, but managed to knock over two seconds off his time over the course of the three days. He and his teammate Rossi were also evaluating and testing the “evolved” seamless shift gearbox Yamaha brought to Sepang 2.
After topping the timesheet’s on the first day, Valentino Rossi has seen the gap between him and Marquez stretch from 0.4 seconds on day two to 0.7 seconds by the end of the test. While he was one of only sevem riders to break the two-minute mark over the course of Sepang 2, the nine-time champion will hope to be more competitive in Qatar.

One rider who will be extremely pleased with his performance over the three days is Brit Cal Crutchlow on the CWM LCR Honda. When he arrived in Sepang, he acknowledged that he had to change his riding style to suit the RC213V and try and find a way to be competitive on fresh tyres. He did just that, improving everyday and managing to set a very impressive 1:59.658 early on day three, which was over 1.5 seconds quicker than his time on day one and more importantly achieved on a new set of tyres. Not only that but he managed to run a long race simulation this afternoon in which he consistently was lapping around the 2:01 mark.

His teammate Jack Miller, who was using this test to get used to riding the Open class Honda RC213V-RS, posted his fastest time on the final morning. He managed a 2’01.593 as he continues to get used to the extra 200bhp on offer from his new machine compared to his Moto3 bike from last year.

 “I’m really happy with how the test has gone and I have worked hard on the bike but also on myself in order to get more comfortable as the laps go on. We’re not too far off. I’m the second of the rookie riders out there so that makes me happy because there are some other more experienced guys that have been used to bigger bikes behind me, so it’s good to be where we are.

“Of course, we’re still not quite as fast as we would like to be, but everybody’s putting out some really quick times – my teammate Cal did a scorcher this morning – so it’s not easy at the moment, but it’s good to feel like we’re making progress," said Miller.

“For now I’m reasonably pleased overall, but I will admit that I’m looking forward to the next test in Qatar, which is a track that’s a different style and a bit more flowing. It will be good to get there and try out another circuit on this bike.”

It was a very important three days for Ducati, as it debuted the all-new GP15 bike. Andrea Iannone immediately found the new machine to his liking, finishing fourth overall on the timesheets, and managing to get within 0.6 seconds of Marquez on the final morning. Dovizioso complained of some issues under braking and did not show the same confidence on the visibly smaller machine, ending up setting his fastest time on day two, half a second slower than his teammate. Team boss Luigi Dall’Igna stating that they wanted to see how the bike performed at the Qatar test before making a decision if they will take two GP15s to the first race, in case Dovizioso may prefer the GP14.3.

Suzuki continued its encouraging return to MotoGP by bringing a new fairing and some engine updates to Malaysia. Aleix Espargaro took advantage of these improvements to record a 2:00.275 on the final morning, good enough for ninth place overall. Rookie Maverick Viñales looked to have no problems adjusting to the GSX-RR after stepping up from Moto2, and will have surprised quite a few people by finishing just over 0.3 seconds slower than his more experienced teammate.

For Aprilia, an evolution of the bike it used at Sepang 1 had mixed results, as Alvaro Bautista had more success than his teammate Marco Melandri on the latest version of the RS-GP. Bautista ended day one in 12th but struggled to improve much more over the test, shaving just 0.4 seconds off his time over the next two days, while Melandri ended each day last and on the final day was almost 4.5 seconds behind Marquez.

For full results from the Sepang 2 test, simply click here.