Marquez Leads On Day One of MotoGP Winter Test

SEPANG (Selangor, Malaysia), Feb 7 (Bernama) -- Repsol Honda Team rider, Marc Marquez blazed the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) to top the timesheet on the first day of the 2019 MotoGP pre-season winter test, here Wednesday. The Spaniard, who will be celebrating his 26th birthday on Feb 17, upped his pace at midday to set his fastest lap time of one minute and 59.621 seconds to leave him 0.259s clear of his compatriot, Alex Rins of Team Suzuki Ecstar. The reigning world champion, who is recovering from an operation on his left shoulder over the winter break, took the scorching session to set the time in his lap 26 of 29 laps done today at the 5.543 kilometre (km) circuit. “I'm very happy to ride again after the long winter, but I was expecting to do better than this. I still don't have full power, for one or two laps I think it was okay, but I had to change my riding style to compensate. “We stopped early to save myself for the rest of the test, there are still two days remaining and we will see what the feeling is,” said Marquez, who did not came out from the garage after the midday ride. He also noted that the team had been working on providing the best bike for the season. “The bike is already at a good point, but there’s always more to try before Qatar,” Marquez added. The Sepang Circuit track temperatures soared to 56 degrees Celcius during midday and cool down to 49.2 degrees Celcius at the end of today's session. Another Spaniard, Marverick Vinales of Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP in third place with a time of 1:59.937s, while his teammate and seven-time premier class world champion, Valentino Rossi of Italy in sixth place with his fastest lap time of 2:00.054s. Meanwhile, Malaysia's owned MotoGP team, Petronas Yamaha SRT riders, Franco Morbidelli (Italy) and Fabio Quartararo (France) clocked their best time of 2:00.460s and 2:00.985s respectively. Malaysia's sole MotoGP rider, Hafizh Syahrin Abdullah of Red Bull KTM Tech 3 laid at the bottom of the timesheet with 2:01.853s. The three-day pre-season test was held from 10 am to 6 pm and the eight-hour official pre-season test continues Thursday. -- BERNAMA