World Champion Marc Marquez continued to lead Sepang testing halfway through the second day, becoming the first rider this week to lap the Malaysian circuit in under two minutes.

Once again, the green light illuminated over Sepang at 10am local time, with warm and dry weather making for ideal pre-season testing conditions on the second of three days of track action this week. Also once again, HRC Test Team rider Kosuke Akiyoshi was first to post a lap time before more riders began flooding out of the pits, with Marquez and Repsol Honda Team partner Dani Pedrosa becoming the last two of the 26 to make an appearance shortly before the end of the opening hour.

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo had led at the end of that first hour, but the order was shuffled up during the second as Pedrosa posted a leading effort of 2’00.336 to lead LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl by just three thousandths of a second.

There was a general pause in track activity on the run-up to two o’clock, only for Marquez to then set the fastest time of the week thus far with 1’59.926, therefore becoming the first to break through the two-minute threshold. This demoted Pedrosa and Bradl to second and third spots, with Lorenzo’s team-mate Valentino Rossi fourth and leading Open rider Aleix Espargaro inside the top five on NGM Mobile Forward Racing’s FTR-Yamaha (six tenths down on Marquez).

Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Bradley Smith is sixth from the aforementioned Lorenzo, Pramac Racing’s Andrea Iannone and Smith’s team-mate Pol Espargaro. GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista is tenth, but at half past 11 suffered a technical problem with his bike and took a shortcut back through to the pit lane. The greatest number of laps to have been completed so far is 44 by Smith.

Track activity continues for a further four hours, until 6pm local time (GMT +8).



.