Larry Lawrence | February 18, 2016
Photo courtesy MotoGP.com
Day two of MotoGP testing at Phillips Island held yet another surprise as Suzuki’s Maverick Viñales topped the leaderboard.
After an initially slow start, the second day of the Phillip Island MotoGP test proved to be a productive one with weather conditions allowing riders to run in the dry. There was limited morning action with just the Ducati Team duo of Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone heading out on track alongside Jorge Lorenzo and Takuya Tsuda. Lorenzo spent the early stages on wet weather tires while Iannone tested the new Michelin intermediate tires as the track continued to dry out.
The afternoon saw all of the top ten riders inside the 1’29 mark with Maverick Viñales setting the fastest lap of the day, and of the test so far, with a 1’29.131 as he continued to assert himself as one of the hottest young properties in MotoGP. 2015 saw the Team Suzuki Ecstar rider end the race a credible sixth, the young Spaniard able to set a 1’29.131 on his 63rd lap on Thursday, half a second faster than his best lap from the race. Suzuki are continuing to work hard on development, test rider Tsuda running extensive assessments of the fully seamless gearbox in Phillip Island.
The final five minutes saw Viñales and Marc Marquez swap fast laps, each taking a turn at leading before the flag came out. On his penultimate lap Marquez managed to set a 1’29.292, 0.161s behind Viñales with a total of 79 laps completed throughout the day. Both the Repsol Honda Team riders are continuing to assess two chassis variants, with the 2016 ‘evo’ engine, debuted at a private test in Jerez, fitted.
The final day in Phillip Island gets underway at 09:45 Local Time on Friday morning.
Day Two MotoGP Test Results at Phillips Island, Feb. 18, 2016
1 VIÑALES, Maverick Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 1:29.131
2 MARQUEZ, Marc Repsol Honda Team 1:29.292
3 LORENZO, Jorge Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1:29.357
4 ROSSI, Valentino Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1:29.404
5 CRUTCHLOW, Cal LCR Honda 1:29.671
6 BARBERA, Hector Avintia Racing 1:29.854
7 IANNONE, Andrea Ducati Team 1:29.857
8 PEDROSA, Dani Repsol Honda Team 1:29.917
9 REDDING, Scott Octo Pramac Yakhnich 1:29.941
10 SMITH, Bradley Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1:29.992
11 BAZ, Loris Avintia Racing 1:30.134
12 DOVIZIOSO, Andrea Ducati Team 1:30.142
13 ESPARGARO, Pol Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1:30.154
14 PETRUCCI, Danilo Octo Pramac Yakhnich 1:30.156
15 ESPARGARO, Aleix Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 1:30.385
16 HERNANDEZ, Yonny Aspar MotoGP Team 1:30.509
17 MILLER, Jack EG 0.0 Marc VDS 1:30.514
18 LAVERTY, Eugene Aspar MotoGP Team 1:30.617
19 RABAT, Tito EG 0.0 Marc VDS 1:30.650
20 TSUDA, Takuya Suzuki Test Team 1:32.599