Pedrosa fastest as testing resumes

Dani Pedrosa continued his imperious start to the 2013 season by topping a rain-hit opening to MotoGP’s second winter test at Sepang.

Pedrosa, who completed a clean sweep of the first test, edged out 2012 champion Jorge Lorenzo by just over two tenths of a second.

Both men set their best times in the early part of the day, before the onset of rain effectively washed out the afternoon.

Marc Marquez continued his own impressive build-up to what will be his rookie season, finishing third fastest and getting to within four tenths of Pedrosa’s time.

He was just 0.017 seconds quicker than Stefan Bradl, the man who beat him to the 2011 Moto2 crown.

Bradl, riding as a Honda factory supported rider this year, was in turn only 0.069s than Valentino Rossi on the second Yamaha.

After a poor start to the year and calls for major changes, Ducati’s works team fared better in the second test as Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden locked out eighth and ninth.

That put them behind Tech 3′s Cal Crutchlow and Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista, but within 1.5s of the outright pace.

Pramac satellite riders Ben Spies and Andrea Iannone were however outpaced by the fastest of the CRT riders, Aspar’s Aleix Espargaro.

The test attracted a 27-bike field, with the 2013 entrants once again bolstered by Yamaha test duo Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Wataru Yoshikawa. Honda’s counterpart Takumi Takahashi and Ducati’s Michele Pirro were also present.

Paul Bird’s Michael Laverty was unable to get out however as the team spent much of the day putting the finishing touches to the in-house chassis it will run for the Northern Irishman this year.

Pos  Rider               Bike                   Time                 Laps
  1.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                  2m01.580s            43
  2.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                 2m01.815s  + 0.235s  25
  3.  Marc Marquez        Honda                  2m01.942s  + 0.362s  23
  4.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda              2m01.959s  + 0.379s  38
  5.  Valentino Rossi     Yamaha                 2m02.028s  + 0.448s  25
  6.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha          2m02.272s  + 0.692s  28
  7.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda          2m02.362s  + 0.782s  32
  8.  Andrea Dovizioso    Ducati                 2m02.801s  + 1.221s  22
  9.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                 2m03.143s  + 1.563s  46
 10.  Bradley Smith       Tech 3 Yamaha          2m03.632s  + 2.052s  24
 11.  Katsayuki Nakasuga  Yamaha                 2m03.734s  + 2.154s  24
 12.  Aleix Espargaro     Aspar Aprilia          2m03.941s  + 2.361s  28
 13.  Ben Spies           Pramac Ducati          2m04.047s  + 2.467s  25
 14.  Andrea Iannone      Pramac Ducati          2m04.050s  + 2.470s  32
 15.  Wataru Yoshikawa    Yamaha                 2m04.590s  + 3.010s  23
 16.  Michaele Pirro      Ducati                 2m04.626s  + 3.046s  38
 17.  Hiroshi Aoyama      Avintia FTR-Kawasaki   2m04.743s  + 3.163s  30
 18.  Randy de Puniet     Aspar Aprilia          2m05.288s  + 3.708s  22
 19.  Takumi Takahashi    Honda                  2m05.510s  + 3.930s  34
 20.  Colin Edwards       Forward FTR-Kawasaki   2m05.518s  + 3.938s  21
 21.  Danilo Petrucci     Ioda Suter-BMW         2m05.827s  + 4.247s  35
 22.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Aprilia        2m05.838s  + 4.258s  26
 23.  Yonny Hernandez     Paul Bird Motorsport   2m05.908s  + 4.328s  29
 24.  Hector Barbera      Avintia FTR-Kawasaki   2m06.062s  + 4.482s  30
 25.  Claudio Corti       Forward FTR-Kawasaki   2m06.306s  + 4.726s  26
 26.  Bryan Staring       Gresini FTR-Honda      2m06.730s  + 5.150s  34
 27.  Lukas Pesek         Ioda Suter-BMW         2m07.991s  + 6.411s  25
 28.  Michael Laverty     PBM-Aprilia            -
 

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/motorcycles/motogp/pedrosa-fastest-as-testing-resumes

Peter de Klerk Christian Klien Karl Kling Ernst Klodwig Kamui Kobayashi