Octo Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci has set the quickest time on the second day of MotoGP testing at Sepang, using Michelin’s softest tyre compound which was subsequently withdrawn after Loris Baz’s pit straight crash (click here).
Petrucci set a 2’00.095 on his ninth lap but was chased hard by yesterday’s fastest man Jorge Lorenzo who was only 0.060s behind the Italian using the hard-compound tyre. The Movistar Yamaha man set a 2’00.155 on his 31st lap of the Malaysian circuit as the track and air temperature cooled down, picking himself up from an early crash at turn five.
Third went to Baz’s Avintia Ducati team-mate Hector Barbera who lapped at 2’00.387 on the soft tyre to be three-tenths behind his Bologna stablemate but was forced to sit out most of the day as Ducati and Michelin investigated the cause of the Frenchman’s accident.
Marc Marquez has improved the Repsol Honda RC213V by two seconds overnight, setting a 2’00.843 on his fifth lap using the soft tyre.
Valentino Rossi cut his gap to Movistar Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo from a second yesterday to four-tenths today, setting a 2’01.021 on his 47th lap to bag sixth place but ended behind Cal Crutchlow who charged into fifth in the last two minutes with his 2’00.899
Britain’s Scott Redding upped his game overnight on the second Octo Ducati bike, setting a 2’01.049 on his third lap to bag seventh place with the soft tyre, one ahead of the quickest works Ducati of Andrea Iannone, who has been lapping on the GP16 all day. The Italian was just 0.003s behind Redding, also on the soft tyre.
Ducati’s star test rider Casey Stoner hopped into ninth place on the factory GP15 late on, lapping at 2’01.103, 0.004s ahead of Monster Yamaha’s Bradley Smith, who put in a 2’01.107 on his 58th lap.
Ecstar Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales finished just outside the top ten with a 2’01.421 on the soft tyre while Dani Pedrosa who sank from third fastest to 11th, only improving his laptime by half a second with the soft tyre and suffering a crash at turn five with 35 minutes to go.
Yonny Hernandez also took advantage of the soft tyre to set a 2’01.664 while Andrea Dovizioso is inexplicably 14th on the second factory Ducati. Pol Espargaro crashed twice at turn five and ended in 15th, one ahead of brother Aleix.
