Maverick Viñales (Team Suzuki Ecstar) was second on the combined timesheets at Sepang International Circuit, as the Suzuki rider circulated and dueled with Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) for a few laps in FP1 as the two traded places at the top. With rain then making laptimes impossible to improve, Viñales remains P2 from his FP1 time – and from first glance feels like it could be a positive weekend, after arriving with an open mind in Malaysia following a more difficult race at the track in 2015.
Maverick Viñales (P2): “Today was difficult. This morning we could only do the last three laps pushing a little bit, and this afternoon I didn’t really push and take the risk because it was easy to make a mistake. So from today we just feel that we can have a good setup for the race and we could be quite strong.”