The more things change, the more they stay the same. That much could be said of MotoGP and its five factories as they showcased a winter’s worth of work across six sweaty days of testing – three for the Shakedown, three for the official – at Sepang.
Each factory could leave Malaysia feeling optimistic thanks to an array of ridiculously fast times. But the manufacturer hierarchy established last year, with Ducati clearly leading the way, remains intact for the time being at least.
Parts of the track which had been resurfaced before last November’s MotoGP were now fully bedded in. And three days of Shakedown testing meant there was already plenty of grippy Michelin rubber laid down when the test began on 6 February.
