Simoncelli and Stoner 1-2 in Malaysia

The first on-track MotoGP action of the year concluded at Sepang on February 3, and it was Marco Simoncelli who topped the third and final day’s timesheet in Malaysia, ahead of fellow Honda rider and Australian Casey Stoner.

Simoncelli, the 2009 250 GP world champion, posted a best lap of 2:00.757, an effort that registered the best time of the entire test and was just 0.239 seconds off Valentino Rossi’s 2009 circuit best lap.

Stoner was one of four riders to join Simoncelli under the 2:01 mark on the final day. The Australian’s best effort of 2:00.811 was produced on his 38th of 42 laps, thus continuing his pattern of setting his best time late in the day and showing no lingering effects of a fall earlier on.

"Today was definitely the best day, despite the crash. In general we made some nice steps forwards, alternating between the different chassis, trying to get a good feeling for them,” said Stoner, who worked on two different 2011 frame options.

“We managed to make the bike work a lot better with used tyres and a different traction control system that catches the tyres a little quicker when they start to spin -- which assisted with our corner speed.

“I'm really pleased with what I've found in this test, in fact it's a little better than what I expected,” he added. “I'm happy with the overall package, just to be able to focus with such a good base set-up has been really important for us.”

World champion Jorge Lorenzo was just 0.088 seconds off Simoncelli as he placed his factory M1 as the highest Yamaha. The Spaniard, who performed a tyre test in the afternoon, was precisely 0.1 seconds faster than Andrea Dovizioso (Honda).

Ben Spies’ integration into the Yamaha factory team maintained its smooth rate of progress. The American was next in line after Dovizioso, and he was followed by Dani Pedrosa (Honda) and Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda).

The highest placing Ducati was that of Nicky Hayden, who tried out different race settings on the GP11, Hayden and fellow American Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) were the last two to come within a second of Simoncelli’s top time.

Rossi then led a group of five Ducatis, the Italian running a new set-up on the final day and managing to deal with the chatter issue that had been affecting his GP11.

Click on the following link to review all the test times from Sepang.