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Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha) set the overall fastest time (again!) at 1:59.368
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Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) just 0.138 seconds behind Vinales
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Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) third fastest on board the Desmo GP17
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ALL top 10 riders separated within 0.404 seconds!
It was a hard-fought battle yesterday but the newly-appointed Movistar Yamaha rider, Maverick Vinales, set the fastest time again out of all the riders in the past three days. With a blistering time of 1:59.368, Vinales took the top spot in his 40th lap out of 72 around the Sepang International Circuit (SIC).
The current MotoGP Champion, Marc Marquez of the Repsol Honda outfit managed to set his fastest pace with an impressive 1:59.506 but Vinales managed to squeeze in just a tenth of a second faster than the world champion, putting him at P2.
The third fastest rider of the day was Andrea Dovizioso from Ducati who managed to set a 1:59.553, just 0.047 slower than Marquez. This is feat is made even more impressive with the fact that it was set on only Dovi’s ninth lap out of 56 around SIC whereas Marquez needed twice as many laps to come out with an almost identical time set by Dovizioso.
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) was a bit late to the front runners’ party but managed to bag P4 later in day during his 67th lap. His best time was 1:59.578. Another veteran who can’t be ignored is Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha) who improved from Day 1 with a 1:59.589, putting him in fifth. Bautista surprised everyone again in P6 ahead of MotoGP living legend and Ducati test rider, Casey Stoner.
Cal Crutchclow (LCR Honda), Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati) and Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) completed the top 10 of the day. All three of them managed to set their laps within 1:59:7s. Lorenzo managed to find a comfortable setting and made quite a dramatic improvement as compared to his first day of winter testing where he only managed 17th place down in the grid.
In total, all of the top 10 riders were only separated within 0.404 seconds! This shows that the 2017 season is going to be more competitive and exciting than ever with more teams and riders fighting for the top spot. With the Sepang winter test over, the teams will now head back to the drawing boards and determine on how and who will be crowned this year’s MotoGP World Champion.
Stay tuned to Bikes Republic for more MotoGP updates.
Photo Gallery from the Sepang MotoGP Winter Test 2017
