It was one of those days. It was almost dry in the morning and Andrea Dovizioso was quickest, with Marc Marquez over a quarter-of-a-second back. It hammered it down with rain at lunchtime and Andrea Dovizioso was quickest on a wet track in FP2, chased by Marc Marquez who this time was second but over half-a-second slower.
That’s all you need to know. The championship contenders look like taking it down to the wire with the rest hardly figuring. Sepang has loads of grip in the wet but the gaps down the field were big. This is relevant because the race is likely to be wet. If FP3 is dry tomorrow it could be an interesting scramble for seeding direct to Q2. At the moment, Valentino Rossi, Danilo Petrucci and Andrea Iannone will have to go through Q1 while Alvaro Bautista, Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera are currently going straight to Q2.
Frankly, this was the sort of day that happens at the end of a three-week trip. It felt like we were going through the motions. No one was helped by the announcement of the the death overnight of Moto2 team boss Stefan Kiefer, who took Stefan Bradl and Danny Kent to their world titles. He was 52, universally admired and liked.
