If anyone has any reasonable doubts that the Honda RC212V is going to be the bike to beat this season has just to check out the results of day 2 testing at Sepang 2.
All three Repsol Honda riders, with three different riding styles, took the first three spots, with Casey Stoner taking over the lead from team mate Dani Pedrosa in the final minute of the afternoon session, laying down one of his usual blazing laps with a best time of 2’00″171, literally smashing the 2’00″518 lap record held by Valentino Rossi since 2009.
Dani Pedrosa took second, just 0.
058s from Stoner after having lead the timesheets all day and he too had beat the lap record, but did it during the morning session.
Third was Andrea Dovizioso, which would have made an all Repsol Honda podium if this second day of testing happened to be a race.
Dovizioso was just 0.
360s slower than his record breaking team mates.
Fourth and fifth went to Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo respectively and they were followed by another pair of Honda riders, Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli and Hiroshi Aoyama.
The eighth spot went to veteran Tech3 rider Colin Edwards and amazingly enough Yamaha’s #2 test rider took the ninth position in the time charts, 1.
621s off of Casey Stoner’s best lap and beating Mapfre Ducati rider Hector Barbera, who closed out the top ten.
Alvaro Bautista posted the 11th time of the day, set early morning, but has again picked up another flu bug and missed out most of the session.
Less lucky was Valentino Rossi who didn’t even turn a wheel today due to high fever and missing one of the eight official days on testing does not bode well for sorting out the GP11’s problems seeing that the other Ducatisti, Nicky Hayden, Randy de Puniet, Loris Capirossi, rookie Karel Abraham were only 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th and between two and two and a half seconds off pace.
The only Honda rider not to improve from yesterday was Toni Elias who sat down in lowly 17th, followed by rookie Cal Crutchlow bringing up the rear end in 18th, but he’s still recovering from food poisoning which he had caught on the flight out to Malaysia.
MotoGP Sepang 2 – Day 2 Results:1.
Casey Stoner AUS Repsol Honda Team 2m 0.
171s (43)2.
Dani Pedrosa ESP Repsol Honda Team 2m 0.
229s (41)3.
Andrea Dovizioso ITA Repsol Honda Team 2m 0.
531s (46)4.
Ben Spies USA Yamaha Factory Racing 2m 0.
824s (54)5.
Jorge Lorenzo ESP Yamaha Factory Racing 2m 0.
931s (45)6.
Marco Simoncelli ITA San Carlo Honda Gresini 2m 1.
033s (52)7.
Hiroshi Aoyama JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini 2m 1.
439s (64)8.
Colin Edwards USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 2m 1.
738s (44)9.
Bike #T2 JPN Yamaha test Rider 2m 1.
792s (23)10.
Hector Barbera ESP Aspar Team 2m 1.
909s (64)11.
Alvaro Bautista ESP Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 2m 2.
035s (35)12.
Nicky Hayden USA Ducati Team 2m 2.
208s (44)13.
Bike #T1 JPN Yamaha Test Rider 2m 2.
596s (54)14.
Randy de Puniet FRA Pramac Racing Team 2m 2.
604s (35)15.
Loris Capirossi ITA Pramac Racing Team 2m 2.
624s (40)16.
Karel Abraham CZE Cardion AB Motoracing 2m 2.
676s (36)17.
Toni Elias ESP LCR Honda MotoGP 2m 2.
941s (60)18.
Cal Crutchlow GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 2m 2.
984s (40)19.
Nobuatsu Aoki JPN Suzuki Test Rider 2m 4.
582s (46)