Rennie Scaysbrook | February 1, 2016
Movistar Yamaha’s Current MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo has started the MotoGP year in ominous form at the Sepang test, finishing over one second clear of teammate Valentino Rossi.
The Majorcan, who now appears to be adapting well to the new spec electronics and Michelin tires circulated the Sepang venue 37 times over the course of day one, setting a 2:00.684 on his 32nd lap. Rossi set a marathon 55 laps with his best being a 2:01.717, however, more worrying for the 2015 MotoGP runner up was the fact he managed just one lap in the 2:01 bracket, while Lorenzo completed seven laps under the 2:02s.
“I‘m very happy and surprised about the feeling I had today with the Michelin tires,” said Lorenzo at the end of day one. “The lap times were relatively easy to achieve and every time we exited pit lane we improved something on the bike to understand the electronics better and they adapted very well to the Michelin tires. I’m very happy with the change, because Sepang, for me, is always difficult. Today I only slept two hours because of the jetlag and I have a sore throat so I‘m taking antibiotics. My physical condition is not perfect, but to ride two or three laps, I can do that very well. If I was fitter I could do longer stints.”
Rossi was worried about the difference in pace to Lorenzo but tried to remain optimistic.
“The gap to Lorenzo is too big,” he said. “On the other side, my position is not so bad and we worked a lot on the bike. It’s just the first day and the total count will be at the end of the third, but we have a lot of things to do, so tomorrow we’ll try to get a better understanding.”
Third place on day one went to Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, the diminutive Spaniard setting a 2:01.780 to be four places up from teammate Marc Marquez in seventh. Both Repsol riders are working hard to ease the power delivery of the aggressive Honda engine, a challenge that will become harder with the reduced freedom afforded by the team with the control Magneti Marelli electronics.
“Today we had to work very hard on several things but the positive part is that Honda know this and are working on things in Japan,” Pedrosa said. “Michelin has made some positive changes, although we still need to work more to improve the feeling. We saw Jorge [Lorenzo] go very fast on day one, so we are going to continue improving gradually.”
Marquez was a little more circumspect in his approach to day one, although he did put in a strong day of 50 laps. He did finish 1.594s off Lorenzo, which will no doubt ne a concern.
“We still have a lot of work to do, as we have new electronics, a new engine and a few different engine specs to what we used in Valencia and Jerez back in November,” Marquez said. “In terms of setup, we made very few adjustments, because we were focused on the electronics and adapting it to my riding style. This is going to be a long preseason in which we will have to work hard on many different things.”
A surprise fourth on day one was Danilo Petrucci on the Octo Pramac Racing Ducati GP15, 1.127sec off Lorenzo and 0.101sec ahead of factory Ducati rider Andrea Iannone. Hector Barbera was sixth on the Avintia Ducati GP 14.2, ahead of Marquez, Scott Redding, Aleix Espargaro and Cal Crutchlow rounding out the top 10.