As I already took a peek at the long runs from the Sepang Test, I think it’s time to take a look at the best times from each rider during the test. In the following grpahs you will be able to see each rider’s best and ideal lap. The graph is ordered in terms of best lap and not ideal lap.
Info: Ideal laps are the sum of the best 4 sectors from each riders. This means that if a rider puts his best 4 sectors of the day in the same lap his best lap will be as well his ideal lap.
Pecco Bagnaia finished with the fastest time overall in the Sepang Test an although Jorge Martin himself admitted that when he saw his 1’56 he had no more interest in doing more time attacks because there was no point on keep pushin had he already seen that the new fairing had potential, his ideal lap would have put him first on the final day.
In fact, it was Bagnaia the only rider along with Savadori who managed to put all of his best 4 sectors together, and all the other riders left about a tenth or two in the clock. It is still surprising seeing that Jack Miller even with his ideal lap (1’57.6) would still be 3 tenths slower than GasGas rookie and testing sensation Pedro Acosta. But more surprising is seeing 2022 Moto2 World Champion Augusto Fernandez being almost 1 and a half seconds slower than his teammate Acosta.
Although on long runs Viñales seemed even faster than teammate Aleix Espargaro, when talking about one lap speed he seems to be struggling a bit with the 24 Aprilia, as he was 0.5 slower than Espargaro, though he had a good 2 tenths still in his pocket. It might not be a coinicdence then than Oliveira with also the new 2024 Aprilia bike was the one with more time to find in his best tlap, almost 0.3 off from his ideal lap.
Bezzechi was the only rider who was not able to improve his times from the second to the third day of the Sepang test, and even though he was not happy with his performance, taking into consideration that he didn’t make the most out of the last day’s track conditions, he was not that far off. I definitely expect a step up from him at the Qatar test.
Finally, life remains pretty much the same for Honda and Yamaha, sitting in the second third of the grid as they were last year during qualyfing, with Mir, Quartararo and Nakagami using that bit more of experience that their new teammates do not have in comparison to them to have the best laps from the pairings. Luca Marini specially will have tu step up as he finished as the last Honda, although he had more than 2 tenths to improve in comparison with his idel lap which would put him in front of Zarco and very close to the United States Grand Prix winner from 2023, Alex Rins.