Second day at Sepang sees Spies on top by midday

Work on the new 1000cc prototypes continued for the MotoGP™ teams at the Sepang International Circuit on Wednesday, with the Factory Yamaha duo climbing the timesheet by the midway point of the day as they turned their focus to chassis balance and power delivery of the 2012 M1. Ben Spies led the way with a fastest recorded lap of 2’01.052, with Lorenzo following a close 0.092s behind.

The day saw Casey Stoner back in action after the World Champion pulled a muscle in his back yesterday morning, forcing him to miss the first day of testing. The Repsol Honda rider set a quickest time of 2’01.245 with team-mate Dani Pedrosa pacing four tenths behind as the two focused their efforts on setting up the new RC213V.

Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Cal Crutchlow rounded out the top five by mid-morning as the Briton lapped a tenth off Pedrosa, while Alvaro Bautista (San Carlo Honda Gresini) following in sixth and Ducati test rider Franco Battaini taking the seventh spot on the time sheet.

Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden spent the morning trying new parts on the Ducati Team’s all new GP12, with the Italian setting his fastest lap his 3rd of 23 laps with 2’02.400 and Hayden following 0.014s behind his team-mate after 17 laps around the circuit.

Ninth quickest of the morning was Moto2 World Champion Stefan Bradl on the LCR Honda, followed by Andrea Dovizioso on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine.

After spending yesterday getting to know his new Ducati, Hector Barbara occupied the 11th spot in the morning times with his fastest lap of 2’02.579 aboard the Pramac Racing Ducati, half a second ahead of Karel Abraham, who is testing a different chassis on his Cardion AB Motoracing GP12 today.

Colin Edwards made 15 laps in the morning on his NGM Mobile Forward Racing CRT to rank 15th in the lineup, as he and his team focus on a newer electronics and traction control package on the Suter-BMW, after a software issue had the Texan riding with an earlier version of the electronics yesterday.

The Avintia Racing team has suffered the unfortunate incidence of a broken engine in its BQR-FTR, and the team are working fervently to put rider Ivan Silva and test rider Robertino Pietri back on the track as the pair completed just 9 and 5 laps respectively.

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