Malaysian MotoGP: Dovizioso tops wet FP2 from Marquez

With conditions deteriorating since Friday morning's session, Dovizioso's benchmark FP1 time of 2m00.671s went untouched throughout the afternoon, with the provisional top 10 order also not changing.

Marquez led the way for much of the session with an early best time of 2m13.877s, although this was soon beaten by Dovizioso, who undercut the Honda rider by six tenths with a 2m13.246s.

The Italian rider was soon beaten again by Marquez, who reclaimed the top spot with a 2m12.471s before improving to a 2m12.171s to lead Dovizioso by over a second.

That was before Dovizioso set what proved to be the quickest time of the afternoon, a 2m11.640s, with neither he nor Marquez finding any more improvements for the rest of the session.

Best of the rest was Dovizioso's factory Ducati teammate Jorge Lorenzo, who lagged 1.7s behind with 15 minutes remaining but managed to close the deficit to 1.055s by the chequered flag.

Maverick Vinales continued Yamaha's improved wet-weather form in fourth, a further two tenths back, albeit getting involved in a bizarre early incident with Hector Barbera's Avintia Ducati that cost him a brake lever on one of his bikes.

Danilo Petrucci was fifth on the Pramac Ducati, followed by the second factory Yamaha of Valentino Rossi, who ended up 1.431s off the pace.

Second-fastest in the morning, Alvaro Bautista (Aspar Ducati) was seventh in the afternoon, ahead of Suzuki pair Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone and the sole Aprilia of Sam Lowes.

Tech 3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco ended up just outside the top 10 after a late crash at Turn 8, while teammate Michael van der Mark concluded his first day of MotoGP running 19th, 3.2s adrift of the top spot.

Practice results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	2'11.640
2	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	2'12.166	0.526
3	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	2'12.695	1.055
4	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	2'12.878	1.238
5	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	2'13.048	1.408
6	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	2'13.071	1.431
7	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	2'13.291	1.651
8	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	2'13.416	1.776
9	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	2'13.483	1.843
10	22	Sam Lowes	Aprilia	2'13.561	1.921
11	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	2'13.648	2.008
12	43	Jack Miller	Honda	2'13.740	2.100
13	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	2'13.760	2.120
14	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	2'13.872	2.232
15	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	2'14.281	2.641
16	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	2'14.287	2.647
17	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	2'14.543	2.903
18	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	2'14.574	2.934
19	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	2'14.938	3.298
20	8	Hector Barbera	Ducati	2'15.163	3.523
21	53	Tito Rabat	Honda	2'16.280	4.640
22	76	Loris Baz	Ducati	2'17.627	5.987