The third of final day of MotoGP testing at Sepang saw reigning World champion Casey Stoner thrash the rest of the field by posting an amazing 1’59.
607 (beating his last year’s 800cc test time) on his second lap out early in the morning when temperatures were slightly ‘cooler’ he was the only rider to break the two minute barrier.
Despite all the riders bettering their lap times from the last two days – rain halted the final minutes of the test – the Australian remained virtually untouchable and seemingly having solved those bothersome chatter issues that the Honda RC213V has been having and already demonstrating that everyone has still have to play catch up, but there will be more tests to see if they can at least match his blistering pace.
Jorge Lorenzo ended up second on the timesheets and almost six tenths of second adrift while testing various set-ups.
Yamaha teammate Ben Spies posted the fourth best time and the last rider to be within a second from the top of the charts despite a crash earlier in the day when he lost the front of his M1, and fortunately not suffering any consequences.
Spies then quit for the rest of day, apparently he had already completed his entire test program.
Inserting himself between the Yamaha duo was Dani Pedrosa in third, who was still making a comparison test between two different chassis that Honda brought to Sepang.
Valentino Rossi was fifth and 1.
217 seconds from the stratospheric Stoner, but six tenths of second from Jorge Lorenzo which could be seen as consoling for the Ducati team, despite their goal of being within a second on the final day and the may have a margin for improvement.
Ducati’s Nicky Hayden was back on track today but could only ride for 16 laps before stopping again with continuing pain to his shoulder, he posted the 10th best time of the day and it seems that those pesky and chronic front end issues have all but gone away.
Right behind Rossi was Hector Barbera on the GP12 Zero (we know it’s hard to keep track of Ducati’s designations) who finished just two tenths of second from the Italian.
We don’t know if Barbera used another tow from Rossi to post his best time like he did yesterday.
Yamaha Tech 3 duo Cal Crutchlow and a gutsy Andrea Dovizioso were 7th and 8th respectively, with the Brit suffering a small crash.
Alvaro Bautista was 9th and coming to grips not only with Gresini’s Honda but also with the new Showa suspensions.
At the back of the grid as expected were the CRT bikes, with Colin Edwards once again leading that group of riders, and despite being more than five seconds from Stoner he was less than three from Karel Abraham.
The biggest problem on the grid are the Avintia riders whose gap is still huge, over ten seconds.
MotoGP testing will resume at Sepang from February 28 to March 1.
MotoGP Sepang Day 3 Final test results:1 Stoner C.
Repsol Honda Team 1:59.
6072 Lorenzo J.
Yamaha Factory Racing +0.
5913 Pedrosa D.
Repsol Honda Team +0.
6494 Spies B.
Yamaha Factory Racing +0.
8885 Rossi V.
Ducati Team +1.
2176 Barbera H.
Pramac Racing Team +1.
3227 Crutchlow C.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +1.
5018 Dovizioso A.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +1.
6509 Bautista A.
San Carlo Honda Gresini +1.
77710 Hayden N.
Ducati Team +2.
12211 Bradl S.
LCR Honda +2.
28712 Abraham K.
Cardion AB Motoracing +2.
61113 Nakasuga K.
Yamaha Factory +2.
72714 Battaini F.
Ducati Team +3.
42615 Edwards C.
NGM Mobile Forward Racing +5.
11516 Silva I.
Avintia Racing +8.
61817 Pietri R.
Avintia Racing +10.
03318 Torres J.
Avintia Racing +10.
577