Crutchlow up again, Pedrosa appears fleetingly

Second day of MotoGP Shakedown completed for premier class testers at Sepang Circuit on a complicated day in meteorological terms which has forced the riders to run for most of the day on wet tyres.

Monday dawned with the Sepang sky completely covered in gray clouds and a light drizzle that prevented riding slicks during the early hours of the day. Starting at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, the water stopped falling, and almost three hours later, around 5:00 p.m. local time, the first slicks began to be seen on the trackalthough still with the presence of some scattered water patches.

In these conditions, Cal Crutchlow again led the timing chart; The one from Yamaha has been alternating throughout the day at the handlebars of three different units of the YZR-M1, each one named T1, T2 and T3, and it has been with this last prototype that Cal has established his best lap of the day in the final stages of the day, stopping the clock at 2:02.079 on slick tyres.

Again, a lot of work on the track for the Briton, whoue remains focused on tuning the 2023 YZR-M1 engine and also to finish off some fringes in the aerodynamic section of the Iwata machine, which has also debuted here a totally new configuration of wings and appendages.

The Ducati tester, Michelle Pirroclosed the blind of his garage with the second fastest time on Monday, half a second behind Cal Crutchlow’s time, devoting most of his laps to understanding how Ducati’s new aerodynamics work in wet conditions, especially the new lower part of the fairing, which now imitates the sides of a Formula 1 car to increase ground effect.

The only MotoGP rookie this season, Augusto Fernandezhas accumulated a few laps in the wet, finishing third, almost seven tenths behind Crutchlow, followed by the Aprilia tester, Lorenzo Savadori (4th +0.869) and German Jonas Folger (5th +2.046), who has traveled to Sepang to work with KTM on the development of the RC16.

Inside Folger’s box, The days of Pedrosa He has also been working on the track, although once again without a transponder. The Spanish pilot has decided to ride without making his times public, although yesterday a record of 2: 00.4 was leaked that would have placed Dani at the top of the timing table for the opening day of the Shakedown.

Today, #26 has appeared fleetingly on the ‘Live Timing’ screens of the circuit showing a 2:02.807 for the last hour, already with slicks, although his name has disappeared from the table after a few minutes. That record would have placed him fourth today in a day that was not very important in terms of time-attack given the asphalt conditions.

The only rider who has not taken to the track with slicks has been Stefan Bradl; The HRC man finished his activity on the track before anyone else, closing the blind of his box early in the afternoon, accumulating 27 laps with the water Michelin to continue advancing in the development of the RC213V 2023.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the last day of Shakedown MotoGP in Sepang, back on schedule from 03:00 in the morning to 11:00 in the morning Spanish peninsular time, from 10:00 to 18:00 there in Malaysia.

Read also: Davide Tardozzi: “Jorge Lorenzo was the most difficult driver to handle”

MotoGP Shakedown Results | Day 2