MotoGP Sepang Test: Marquez fastest as top 14 covered by 1 second

Author: Oli Rushby Posted: 24 Feb 2015

Marc Marquez returned to the top on Day 2 of MotoGP testing in Sepang, but with a second covering the top fourteen riders the grid looks closer than ever.

The Spaniard was sixth fastest on the first day after suffering braking issues but with these resolved, he got down to the pace on Tuesday setting a fastest lap of 1’59.884 to top the pile by just 0.058 ahead of Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo.

There was good news for Ducati with both Iannone and Dovizioso within half a second of Marquez’ time on the all-new GP15, which seems to have fixed Ducati’s long-term handling issues.

Dani Pedrosa was fifth fastest just 0.464 off his teammate’s time ahead of Valentino Rossi in sixth. Just 0.004 separated Britain’s Bradley Smith and Cal Crutchlow who were seventh and eighth fastest respectively ahead of the Espargaro brothers, led by Aleix on the Suzuki, rounding out the top ten.

Danilo Petrucci was eleventh ahead of rookie Maverick Vinales with Bike Social-backed Scott Redding also within a second of Marquez’ time.

Hector Barbera set the fourteenth fastest lap time just 1.003 seconds off the pace after towing Redding earlier in the day with Yonny Hernandez rounding out the top fifteen.

The day’s crashers included Pol Espargaro and leader Marc Marquez, plus Jack Miller who went down in the dying moments of the day’s session.

Testing concludes tomorrow.