A drying track produced a frantic final hour of action on day two in Malaysia, which ended with Cal Crutchlow aga﷽in officially fastest for Yamaha.

The Englishman again appeared to be the only Yamaha test r🉐iderꦺ on track and was swapping between the three different bikes (T1, T2 and T3).

Crut🅘chlow's late time of 2m 2.079s put him half a second c💝lear of Ducati's Michele Pirro with GASGAS rookie Augusto Fernandez in third.

A glimpse of Dani Pedrosa's KTM lap times...

KTM's Dani Pedrosa spent al🐈l of Day 1 and much of Day 2 riding without a transponder turnedও on, meaning he was not listed on the official timing.

But the Spaniard, rumoured to have been even faster than Crutchlow on Sunday, then suddenly appeared on the ꦗtiming screens in the final hour.

The 31-time MotoGP race winner, who will make a wild-card appearance at this year's Spanish GP, quickly moved to the top with a 2m 2.807s on slicks.☂.. Then vanished from the screens once again!

Pedrosa returned to do more slick laps in the last half-hour,꧅ and could well have gone faster, but the transponder rema♊ined off (apparently at his request)...

• KTM: Red Bull aero? ‘What matters is on track’ Coach ꧃Kal🌟lio

Day two🅘 got off to a slow start due to persistent light rain.

Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori was first on track, with only Pirro and Crutchlow also rec🥂ording an early lap time.

Crutchlow was fastest as of 11am, with Honda's Stefan Bradཧl then taking over during his opening 6-lap stint, riding an all-black bike also fea⛎turing the rear seat fins.

Fernandez, the only full-time MotoGP rider eligible for the Shakedown, then put his GASGAS-branded KTM on top juﷺst before midday.

As the&nbs🎃p;drizzle cleared and the track slowly began to drꦬy, Fernandez improved his time to remain quickest.

The early afternoon saw most riders remain in the pits, with the last 🍌of the wet-tyre Monday laps by Pirro, who went fastest just before 4:30pm on a patchy half-dry/half-damp surface.

Savadori then became the rider to try s🐈licks, just before 5pm, moving to the top and prompting others to rush out and cram in as much slick tyre work as possible during the last hour.

Fastest Day 1 Time:
Cal Crutchlow GBR Yamaha 2m 1.146s (330.3km/h top speed)

Official Sepang MotoGP records:
Best lap:
Jorge Martin SPA Ducati 1m 57.790s (2022)
Fastest race lap:
Jorge Martin SPA Ducati 1m 59.634s (2022)

The Shakedown, from February 5-7, is mainly used to make sure the new machines are running correctly before they are handed over to the race riders, as well as some d🎀ev🧔elopment work on new parts (especially aerodynamics).

Crutchlow was officially fastest on day one (there are reports💟 Pedrosa set a 2min 0.4s) with a time of 2m 1.146s, set before a mid-afternoon rain shower, putting the Englishman 0.185s ahead of reigning Moto2 champion Fernandez.

Crutchlow also took the 2023 M1 engine to a top speed 0.1km/h faster than the best Yamaha sꦺpeed (330.2km/h) during the Malaysian MotoGP race weekend, by Fabio Quartararo in qualifying. Quartararo's lap time was almost two seconds quicker than Crutchlow's day one lap, so the big question will be if the top speed of th🙈e new engine increases in proportion to lap time...

The Official Sepang Test, for all race riders, will be held at the Malaysian Grand Prix veꦦnue from February 10-12.

Testing takes place from 10am to 6pm.

Sepang Shakedown Test - Day 1: