Marc Márquez tops the first day of MotoGP testing at Sepang

Rider Marc Márquez was the fastest on this first day of the MotoGP World Championship testing at the Sepang Circuit. The 2014 pre-season began today with the first track outing of the riders in the premier class at the Malaysian circuit.

Márquez set a lap time of 2:00.286 after completing more than 60 laps, with this time set in the final part of the session. The second part of the test was put to good use by the riders, as the drop in temperatures allowed them to run much better and set more interesting lap times.

Behind the World Champion came Valentino Rossi, the Italian finished 0.518s behind Márquez, also setting a time of 2:00 and completing more than 60 laps of the Malaysian track, so a lot of work for the Yamaha man.

The third position on this first day went to Dani Pedrosa. The 26 was 0.620s behind his teammate, and was the last rider on the grid to run a 2:00, with the rest of the riders having already gone faster than these times. The Catalan was the rider who completed the most laps on the circuit, with 75, so there are many things to try and fine-tune before the start of the season. This year’s RC213V features a larger air intake in an attempt to increase top speed and improve acceleration response when exiting corners.

Jorge Lorenzo finished in fourth place, 0.796s behind the leader, working on all the new features coming on the Yamaha and on following the planned developments, an intense first day with a lot still to do. Closing the top 5 was Álvaro Bautista, almost a second behind Márquez.

The top 10 was completed by Bradl in 6th, Espargaró 7th, Iannone 8th, P. Espargaró 9th and Smith 10th. The first machine in the Open category was Aleix Espargaró’s Yamaha, which managed to place ahead of several of the Factory riders on the grid, so once again the Catalan demonstrated his rapid adaptation to all situations.

The rookies finished from 9th place Pol Espargaró; Scott Redding 21st, Mike Di Meglio 23rd, Broc Parkes 24th. Testing will continue at the Sepang International Circuit over the next two days, with sessions from 10:00 to 18:00.

Source | MotoGP Official website