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[Ninjette Newsbot]

MotoGP Sepang test, Day One – Pedrosa leads rain-shortened day

Afternoon showers frustrate MotoGP field following slow times in the morning due to dirty tarmac; Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, and Marc Marcquez continue to lead after first dayDay One of the second official MotoGP preseason test at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia didn’t start off all that well due to poor pavement grip in the morning’s opening session caused by rains during the previous days, with most of the riders’ times about 1.5 seconds slower than the first Sepang test last month. To make matters worse, just as the track began to clean up and grip started to come back in the afternoon, torrential rain brought a halt to the action at 2:30pm local time, forcing the teams to wait until tomorrow to continue.

Despite the limited track time, the top three remained the same from last month’s Sepang test; Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was once again quickest, with Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo second and new MotoGP wunderkind Marc Marquez in third. A somewhat surprising fourth quickest was LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl, with the German slipping underneath Valentino Rossi’s time by 0.017 seconds; Rossi continued his return to form aboard the Yamaha M1 with a strong showing on the first day, even though his 2013 machine was struck with engine problems, forcing him to use the 2012 spare for his practice runs.



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