After MotoGP’s two-month winter testing ban finally came to an end, the LCR Honda Idemitsu Team returned to track action today at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.
 
Takaaki Nakagami was particularly eager to return to action on board his RC213V, after having topped the timesheets at the final test session of 2018 in Jerez back in November. After a short period of reacquainting himself with his machine on Wednesday, the Japanese star was back in the groove, setting the eighth fastest time of the day.
 
The MotoGP field remain in Sepang for two further days of testing on Thursday and Friday.

Takaaki Nakagami – 7th (2’00.158 – lap 54 of 55)

“The overall position isn’t so bad, but this morning it took a bit of time to get the feeling back with the bike. The last time we rode was in November so you notice two months without sitting on a MotoGP bike! During the winter I have done lots of training to prepare for the season ahead, but even then, it is always different to the real thing.”
 
“Step by step I got the feeling back with the bike and the lap time was eventually quite good. We need to focus a lot on the set-up of the machine at the moment, we are still not happy with the braking stability, but for the first day it’s not so bad. We have no new parts, so it’s quite simple for us, we just focus on what we’ve got and make it feel as good as possible.”