The second of three test days at Sepang in preparation for the 2023 MotoGP season opened with a wet track leaving goodwill in the pits for the entire first hour. It was then Fabio Quartararo who proved to be the fastest in more favorable conditions before Miguel Oliveira put his Aprilia RS-GP 2022 from the RNF team in the lead. Good performance also from Pol Espargaró who put the red GASGAS in second position, thus pushing the French official Yamaha finally to fourth place since, in the last moments, it was Jorge Martin who took the lead at half-time.
We will recall the words of George Martin on his new GP23: “I can confirm that our 2023 engine is much better than last year. It’s a good decision. I feel better in all areas. But now we have a lot of work on electronics. We have to reprogram all the maps because everything is different with the engine”.
Ducati and Aprilia are still in a duel at Sepang
I’m sorry Bagnaia follows and he is therefore the first of the pilots Ducati. He is ahead Luca Marini, Alex Rins and his Honda LCR, the official KTM Brad Binder et Franco Morbidelli. BezzecchiFriday’s best performer closes the top 10 at Marc Marquezwho recalled as a warning that Honda was responsible for the level of the bike. Johann Zarco is thirteenth behind one Di Giannantonio which still proves to its advantage.
On the technical side, Brad Binder uses the new RC16 fairing with lower diffusers. Quarterly improved its Friday performance by six tenths. Yamaha once again confirms the progress made in terms of top speed. Francis Bagnaia is the fastest to 336,4 km/h However, Fabio Quartararo is slower than one km/h. The Japanese really seem to have found something. Otherwise, Aleix Espargaró crashed in turn 12 without consequence for him. He is 17th. Bezzecchi also fell at turn 5. Here is the classification at this stage of this exercise, the final of which awaits you at lunchtime in our latitudes.
MotoGP Test Sepang J2 : chronos
Ranking credit motogp.com