Dani Pedrosa maintained a narrow advantage over Jorge Lorenzo as day two of the Sepang pre-season test came to a close. The pair were as closely matched as they had been yesterday but Pedrosa claimed the honours for the second day running after trumping Lorenzo’s morning flyer.
The Repsol Honda team continued to focus on electronics with Pedrosa also working out the best way to distribute the extra 3kg the bikes must carry under the 2013 rules and the Spaniard got down to a 2:00.549 before rain arrived an hour before the scheduled finish. Lorenzo, whose experiment with new and old components continued, was just 0.019s adrift with the impressive Marc Marquez just a quarter of a second back in third. The top four mirrored that of day one with Valentino Rossi sending another message of intent with the fourth fastest time.
Cal Crutchlow found half a second on his Tuesday best to take fifth ahead of Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista but the significant strides were being taken further back. Crutchlow’s Tech 3 teammate Bradley Smith was a full 1.5s quicker than he had been on day one, jumping four places to eighth while Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso went a little way to calming Ducati’s fears by gaining 1.2s each to break into the top ten.
Ben Spies was another rapid improver after overcoming the injury problem that curtailed his opening day, cutting two seconds of his previous best while Andrea Iannone also took a step forward in the other Pramac Ducati to overtake the Aspar CRTs who spent today testing a new chassis and swingarm.
Another man who could feel very satisfied with his day’s work was Michael Laverty who clocked a 2:05.417, enough for 23rd overall and quicker than Pau Bird teammate Yonny Hernandez who complained of a lack of rear grip on his ART.
| Official MotoGP Test – Sepang (Wednesday 6th February) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Nat | Team | Time | Laps | |
| 1 | 26. Dani Pedrosa |  |
Repsol Honda Team | 2:00.549 | 37 | Report |
| 2 | 99. Jorge Lorenzo | |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 2:00.568 | 52 | Report |
| 3 | 93. Marc Marquez | |
Repsol Honda Team | 2:00.803 | 34 | Report |
| 4 | 46. Valentino Rossi |  |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 2:01.038 | 45 | Report |
| 5 | 35. Cal Crutchlow |  |
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 2:01.311 | 41 | Report |
| 6 | 6. Stefan Bradl |  |
LCR Honda MotoGP | 2:01.369 | 31 | Report |
| 7 | 19. Alvaro Bautista | |
Go & Fun Honda Gresini | 2:01.729 | 46 | |
| 8 | 38. Bradley Smith | |
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 2:01.931 | 40 | Report |
| 9 | 69. Nicky Hayden |  |
Ducati Team | 2:02.110 | 51 | |
| 10 | 04. Andrea Dovizioso | |
Ducati Team | 2:02.379 | 51 | |
| 11 | 72. Kosuke Akiyoshi |  |
HRC Test Team | 2:02.526 | 29 | |
| 12 | T2. K Nakasuga | |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 2:02.701 | 30 | |
| 13 | 11. Ben Spies | |
Ignite Pramac Racing | 2:03.002 | 27 | |
| 14 | T1. Wataru Yoshikawa | |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 2:03.156 | 39 | |
| 15 | 29. Andrea Iannone | |
Energy T.I. Pramac Racing | 2:03.169 | 29 | |
| 16 | 41. Aleix Espargaro | |
Power Electronics Aspar | 2:03.251 | 40 | |
| 17 | 14. Randy de Puniet |  |
Power Electronics Aspar | 2:03.791 | 63 | |
| 18 | 9. Danilo Petrucci | |
Came IodaRacing Project | 2:04.284 | 48 | |
| 19 | 37. Takumi Takahashi | |
HRC Test Team | 2:04.559 | 44 | |
| 20 | 7. Hiroshi Aoyama | |
Avintia Blusens | 2:04.786 | 32 | |
| 21 | 8. Hector Barbera | |
Avintia Blusens | 2:04.989 | 28 | |
| 22 | 17. Karel Abraham |  |
Cardion AB Motoracing | 2:05.028 | 54 | |
| 23 | 33. Michael Laverty | |
Paul Bird Motorsport | 2:05.417 | 31 | |
| 24 | 71. Claudio Corti | |
NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 2:05.721 | 22 | |
| 25 | 68. Yonny Hernandez |  |
Paul Bird Motorsport | 2:05.837 | 36 | |
| 26 | 5. Colin Edwards | |
NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 2:06.205 | 23 | |
| 27 | 67. Bryan Staring |  |
Go & Fun Honda Gresini | 2:06.898 | 33 | |
| 28 | 52. Lukas Pesek | |
Came Ioda Racing Project | 2:21.512 | 14 | |
