Silva leads as weather spoils practice

Ivan Silva was the surprise pacesetter in the second MotoGP practice session at Sepang as tricky conditions restricted running and kept the morning’s fastest riders in the garage.

Only 13 riders ended up setting times, among them the four Ducati prototypes and the two satellite Hondas.

The rest of the frontrunners, including the fastest six riders from the morning session, all put in sighting laps and then sat out the session, with conditions too wet for slicks and too dry for wets.

For much of the session times therefore did not change, leaving Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista at the top, fractions ahead of Valentino Rossi.

Six minutes from the flag however slicks suddenly yielded massive gains, allowing those with the inclination the chance to go out and cut swathes from the previous bests.

While the shift in conditions still came too late for the prototype riders, there were plenty of CRT riders ready to head out, with Silva leading the way.

Aspar’s Randy de Puniet and Speed Master’s Roberto Rolfo followed suit and helped lower the benchmark, before Silva settled matters with a 2m10.602s.

That was more than a second clear of Gresini’s Michele Pirro, de Puniet and Rolfo, and over five seconds faster than Karel Abraham on the leading prototype machine.

Bautista and Rossi, neither of whom ventured out on slicks, finished sixth and seventh, ahead of Aleix Espargaro, Nicky Hayden, James Ellison and Stefan Bradl.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time        Gap
  1.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m10.602s
  2.  Michele Pirro       Gresini FTR-Honda     2m12.043s   + 1.441s
  3.  Randy de Puniet     Aspar Aprilia         2m12.046s   + 1.444s
  4.  Roberto Rolfo       Speed Master Aprilia  2m13.216s   + 2.614s
  5.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        2m16.143s   + 5.541s
  6.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         2m17.136s   + 6.534s
  7.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                2m17.173s   + 6.571s
  8.  Aleix Espargaro     Aspar Aprilia         2m17.429s   + 6.827s
  9.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                2m17.804s   + 7.202s
 10.  James Ellison       Paul Bird Aprilia     2m18.478s   + 7.876s
 11.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             2m19.085s   + 8.483s
 12.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         2m21.113s  + 10.511s
 13.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     2m26.857s  + 16.255s
      Dani Pedrosa        Honda                      –          -
      Casey Stoner        Honda                      –          -
      Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                     –          -
      Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha              –          -
      Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha              –          -
      Ben Spies           Yamaha                     –          -
      Yonny Hernandez     Avintia FTR-Kawasaki       –          -
      Danilo Petrucci     Ioda Suter-BMW             –          -
 

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/motorcycles/motogp/silva-leads-as-weather-spoils-practice

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