Ben Spies lays foundations for day two

Ben Spies did 'everything he needed to' during 31 Tuesday laps on the opening day of the second Sepang MotoGP test.

Riding either side of an early-afternoon rain storm, the Texan set a best lap time of 2m 2.819s to sit fourth on the timesheets.

But his main priority was to prepare for what he expects to be a heavy Wednesday workload, comprising of new developments for his factory Yamaha.

“It was good. We didn't ride a lot today with the rain, which helped the jet lag, but we still did everything we needed to do,” said Spies.

“We've got a lot to work on tomorrow. Yamaha has brought quite a lot of things, I've heard, so I hope we've got a dry day to do it.

“We didn't change a lot with the set-up today, but we tested a few different pieces and then were able to test something pretty important for tomorrow in the last 30 minutes after the rain.

“It was to do with the software and now we should have a good base to start with, for the electronics, when we test the new pieces tomorrow.”

Spies added that track conditions had been far from ideal after the rain.

“The last five laps I did were a bit sketchy,” he said. “The bike was all over the place. The track was cleaner than in the morning, but had less rubber so the bike was moving around quite a bit. But it was fun.”

Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was third fastest.