Yamaha’s Maverick Viñales flew to the top of the timesheets during the second day of testing at Phillip Island on Thursday, finishing almost half a second clear of Repsol Honda rival Marc Márquez.
Viñales’ time of 1:28.847, set during the early stages of running, was 0.462s quicker than Márquez’s best as the championship reached the midway point of its pre-season testing programme.
"I think we did a good job today, but we still have some work to do," said the Spaniard.
"We need to choose which chassis we like and decide on a few other things. We still have a lot of laps ahead of us.
"For sure I was trying to go faster at the end of the session today, but in sector three and four there was a lot of wind so I couldn‘t beat the lap time I set this morning, but I‘m happy anyway."
Márquez racked up the most laps across the course of the day – 107 – and finished 0.016s clear of third-placed Cal Crutchlow.
Aspar’s Álvaro Bautista was fourth, in front of Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaró and Tech 3 newcomer Jonas Folger.
Valentino Rossi finished eighth overall on his 38th birthday, while Álex Rins was the lead Suzuki rider in ninth, leaving Jack Miller to complete the top 10 for Marc VDS.
Andrea Iannone took 12th spot for Suzuki, three places ahead of Ducati’s Jorge Lorenzo, the Spaniard finishing 1.3s behind Yamaha replacement Viñales.
Dani Pedrosa finished a low-key 16th for Repsol Honda after suffering from a fever, emerging on-track for only a few hours in the afternoon, while Pol Espargaró was once again the lead KTM rider in 19th spot.
