SEPANG KICKS OFF PRESEASON FOR ÁNGEL NIETO TEAM

Mixed start for the Spanish team: Álvaro Bautista crashes with two hours to run of the session, Karel Abraham finds time in final laps after a technical problem

The elite riders of the highest category of motorcycle racing came face to face again, after the long winter break, in the first test day of a 2018 season that looks set to be another close one. Up to eight riders today lapped within a second, and all this after Dani Pedrosa, the fastest today, clocked a 1'59.427. Only the Ducati riders, Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo were able to get close with the rest of the field outside the 2'00 mark led by Danilo Petrucci, Jack Miller, Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez. The Angel Nieto Team experienced a complicated start to preseason, with life not made easier by rain during the morning. Álvaro Bautista, in his first real test on the Ducati GP17 after the Valencia test, where he could only complete a couple of laps, managed 40 laps of the Malaysian track, with a best time of 2'01.728. However, a crash with just under two hours left until the end of the day meant an early finish for he Spaniard. Karel Abraham was able to clock up 46 laps of Sepang on his Ducati GP16, including a best effort of 2'02.088. The Czech rider, who suffered a technical problem with the gearbox of his bike this afternoon, managed to solve it with his team and returned to the track to lower his best lap time in the last few laps by almost two seconds. 19th Álvaro Bautista 2.01.728 (40 laps): "The day started with rain, so we took a few laps, mainly to gather sensations after the break. Then, as the day has improved, we have been able to continue running some dry laps. It was just a shame that we couldn't work for the whole afternoon because of a crash. Until then, I had been riding with the same tyre, so I could not put a new one in like the others so we have have fallen back a little on the timesheets. Luckily, I was just knocked about a little so tomorrow I can get back on track and continue with the work.” 24th Karel Abraham 2.02.088 (46 laps): "It was a very difficult day because the morning was completely wet and even though we managed a couple of laps as it was drying out, it took until 2pm before we could really start. I had a couple of problems with the bike, mainly with the gearbox, and I had to stop while the guys took the gearbox apart. That took about an hour and a half, so we only had around 45 minutes left to work. I managed two exits, the first I still wasn't happy with the bike but the second one was much better, and when we put some new tyres in then the last three laps were pretty good. Now I can't wait to get back on the bike and see how we can improve it further because in those three laps we found 1.5 seconds, which is pretty crazy."