There is no appointment in Malaysia without rain and also the three days of MotoGP 2023 Shakedown reserved for test riders and rookies was no exception. On today’s day, the second of the three available, the rain conditioned the work of the teams and riders. In fact, only the last available hour saw the protagonists able to ride in dry conditions at Sepang and once again today – like yesterday – Cal Crutchlow confirmed to be the fastest, preceding Michele Pirro by half a second.
In any case, the times in a Shakedown have a relative value, especially on a day that is not perfect from a meteorological point of view, as confirmed by the fact that the chrono set yesterday by the Yamaha has not been lowered today. The team manager of the Iwata house Maio Meregalli he had no hesitation in defining today’s day “wasted” since the rain prevented Crutchlow from carrying out the program that Yamaha had established for this day-2-
In home Ducati Michele Pirro returned to the ‘standard’ aerodynamic set-up after the innovations tested yesterday and concentrated on comparative tests with two different types of exhaust with different lengths. With regard to KTM Jonas Folger joined Dani Pedrosa, but the aerodynamic tests will have to wait until tomorrow due to the rain. A very convincing day for rookie Augusto Fernandez, second in the wet and third of the day at the end of the laps on slick tyres.
A day of great activity as always for Lorenzo Savadori who is preparing the ground for the owners at home Aprilia Aleix Espargarò and Maverick Vinales without forgetting Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez (the riders of the RNF customer team). “We have something innovative on the front fairing – the cryptic message of the Aprilia team manager Paolo Bonora to the microphones of motogp. com – we redesigned the fairing by exploiting the work in the wind tunnel”. As regards instead the work of Stefan Bradl with the Honda The German was the only one to lap only in wet conditions without lowering the benchmark in the final hour on a dry track. The German rider tested a new chassis already used in the Jerez tests under the watchful eye of Ken Kawauchi, the new technical director of the gold wing manufacturer who continues to be close to the development team in this Shakedown. Below are the images of today and the summary of the times.
Shakedown Malaysia 2023, day 2 / Home best times
1. Yamaha 2’02.079 (Cal Crutchlow)
2. Ducati 2’02.598 (Michele Pirro)
3. KTM 2’02.770 (Augusto Fernandez, GasGas)
4. Aprilia 2’02.948 (Lorenzo Savadori)
5. Honda 2’13.419 (Stefan Bradl)
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