Jorge Lorenzo underlined Ducati’s impressive start to the new season by setting the fastest ever two-wheeled lap of Sepang on Tuesday. The Spaniard was the only rider to drop below the 1:59 barrier on the final day of the test as he outpaced Honda pair Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow.
With much of the focus on race simulations, many riders set their quickest laps of the day early on with Lorenzo clocking his record-breaking 1:58.830 during the morning, despite having crashed minutes earlier. This edged him ahead of Pedrosa whose 1:59.009 came within half an hour of the circuit going green at 10am local time. The Repsol Honda rider was continuing to evaluate the team’s new aero-fairing in contrast to his team-mate Marc Marquez who opted against using it on Tuesday.
Crutchlow continued to collect valuable data for Honda, completing over three race-distances on his way to third spot, while Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller capped off a tremendous week for Ducati by taking fourth and fifth respectively, Miller breaking into the top five on all three days of the test. Alex Rins produced another of the day’s eye-catching performances to take sixth, just half a second away from Lorenzo’s blistering pace, and ahead of Marquez in seventh.
Movistar Yamaha had a quiet day by their standards with Valentino Rossi only climbing to eighth in the dying seconds, ten places higher than Maverick Vinales, while Johann Zarco and Danilo Petrucci completed the top ten. Meanwhile, Aprilia rounded off the test 1.1s off the pace in thirteenth courtesy of Aleix Espargaro while Mika Kallio ran aerodynamic upgrades for KTM on his way to sixteenth, the team running just two riders on Tuesday due to injuries sustained by Pol Espargaro on day two.
2018 MotoGP Pre-Season Testing: Sepang (Day Three)
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