Jorge Lorenzo encouraged by day two progress at Sepang

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team continued to book progress during the first three-day Official MotoGP Test of 2016. After yesterday‘s encouraging 1-2 finish, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi were motivated to proceed with today‘s scheduled testing and both riders improved their times compared to yesterday by over half a second.

Lorenzo once again set the pace early in the session, taking over the top spot in the provisional rankings on his third lap. Despite not feeling a hundred per cent fit, he kept a strong pace going and even a small crash in turn five, which left him unhurt, could not slow him down.

The five-time World Champion was able to make big strides as his team tried to find the right combination for the 2016 YZR-M1, the new electronics and the Michelin tyres.

He concluded the day securing second place with a best lap of 2‘00.155, just 0.060s off today‘s best time, which was set on a hard rear tyre after Michelin withdrew the soft spec rear tyre option as a safety precaution following a crash from Loris Baz.

JORGE LORENZO
Today, after Baz‘s crash we couldn‘t use the soft rear anymore, so I had to adapt my riding. It‘s been a little bit difficult, but we still kept having a good feeling apart from the crash that I had with the hot track temperature and the hard front, which looks to be a little bit worse for me. In the afternoon, when we put in the softer tyre, I regained the feeling again that I had yesterday and was able to keep being the fastest rider on the track. Even with the hard tyre we could improve my time of yesterday by half a second, this is a good point. We keep having big margin over the rest and this is very encouraging.

Source: Movistar Yamaha