Yamaha rider Maverick Viรฑales had to bide his time at the start of the morning session at the Sepang International Circuit, keeping a close eye on the live timing screens to get an understanding of the conditions.
Twenty-five minutes into the session, the track had tried sufficiently and he was on his way to clock a time on slick tyres.
He set the provisional 14th time on his first try but saved the best for last. He steadily worked his way up to fourth place in the FP1 rankings, with a 2'00.903s lap, 0.232s from the front.
The Spaniard had the opposite tactic in the wet afternoon session. He quickly left the Movistar Yamaha box as the pit lane traffic light turned green, keen on proceeding with the work on the wet setting of his YZR-M1.
He was showing a positive pace, but a small collision with Hรฉctor Barberรก in turn 15 meant he had to make an unplanned pit stop, with 35 minutes remaining.
Lucky to have escaped a crash, he was able to rejoin the action soon, eager to make up for lost time. He wrapped up the session with a 2'12.878s best lap for fourth, 1.238s from the top of the standings.
With none of the MotoGP riders improving in the afternoon on the results of their morning stint, he also holds fourth place in the combined FP classification.
"Today I felt good in both the dry and the wet conditions. I think we have good potential here in Malaysia,โ he said. โWe still have to work on the set-up of the bike. Sepang is a completely different track to the one in Australia. We have to understand the tyres really well, even if the weather changes so much.โ
โWe have to understand the tyres to be able to choose the best option for the race. I don't know exactly what happened with Barberรก, I tried to make the corner and saw him go straight. We were lucky we didn't hit each other, only my clutch lever broke off, but I didn't see all the action, I just felt it on the bike.'
โI was able to pick up my bike a little bit and didn't crash. Anyway, I was feeling good in FP2, I'm happy and let's see tomorrow. I have good confidence that we can do well in both conditions."
