Pedrosa finishes on top

Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa ended the three-day MotoGP test at Sepang at the top of the timesheets, putting in an early blast that saw him go well inside Jorge Lorenzo's lap record.

The little Spaniard went round in 2'00.100 and increased his gap to title rival Lorenzo to nearly four-tenths of a second in the process. The Mallorcan rider set a 2'00.429 but had new old team-mate Valentino Rossi right on his heels.

"We can leave Sepang with a good feeling, because we had good lap times on all three days. We were able to put in a lot of laps and, above all, try out some important things with the engine and the bike weight to adjust to the three kilos more for this season – dictated by the new rules," said Pedrosa.

"Today we focused on rear tyres, in particular the new hard compound. It is similar to the old one with a little more grip in some areas, but it also creates more chatter. We finished the test well and hope to continue like this in the following ones."

The Doctor achieved his target of breaking the 2'01s barrier in some style, putting in a 2'00.542, only a tenth slower than the reigning world champion and leapfrogged Marc Marquez for third place.

Marquez crashed his version of the Repsol RC213V in the morning session but walked away unscathed. His best of the test was a 2'00.636, half a second slower than his team-mate but he also had Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow right on his tail, only one one-hundredth slower in fifth place.

Team-mate Bradley Smith didn't improve on his pace from yesterday but remained in front of the works Ducatis in eighth place, just behind the HRC-backed bikes of Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista. Ben Spies didn't ride, preferring to rest his shoulder.

PBM Aprilia's Michael Laverty slashed his laptimes on day three and managed to put in an impressive 2'03.874 on his 40th lap, which was good enough for second in the CRT table, only just behind Aleix Espargaro and ahead of Randy De Puniet.

By MotoGP desk

Image by Repsol Media