Team Suzuki Press Office – October 28.
Maverick Viñales – 2nd (Combined)
Aleix Espargaró – 7th (Combined)
The opening free practice session at the Shell Malaysian MotoGP™ at Sepang today saw both Team SUZUKI ECSTAR riders Maverick Viñales and Aleix Espargaró on a strong pace aboard their Factory GSX-RRs.
Viñales was the quickest of the two, finishing the FP1 session in second place with a lap-time of 2'01.478, while Espargaró slotted into seventh, 300ths-of-a-second behind on 2'01.774.
The day was then affected by poor weather conditions and only in the morning could the riders could make some laps with a dry set-up, while in the afternoon’s FP2, the conditions changed from wet to dry. This slowed down the work for the crews, who couldn’t undertake all the work that was planned, but didn’t prevent the riders having a first taste of the new tarmac surface and the changes that have been done to the layout.