Malaysian MotoGP Practice delayed after support class oil spill

MotoGP has issued an updated schedule for the opening day of the Malaysian Grand Prix after an oil spill in the Asia Talent Cup led to postponement of the afternoon practices.

The track contamination caused by one of the Asia Talent Cup bikes, which had their first practice of the Malaysian MotoGP weekend between the MotoGP FP1 session and the Moto3 Practice session, affected more than half the track.

Clean-up operations took place between turn 15 and turn nine of the Sepang International Circuit ahead of Moto3 Practice, which was originally due to start at 13:15 local time but was ultimately delayed until the time at which it was originally due to finish: 13:50.

As a result of the delay, a full revised schedule for the afternoon practices in Sepang has been released.

Moto2 FP2 is now due to start at 14:40 local time (07:40 UK time) and MotoGP will now start at 15:35 local time (08:35 UK time).

The track contamination delays come after MotoGP FP1 was interrupted by rain on Friday morning.

Heavy rain began falling with 13 minutes remaining in the opening premier class session of the weekend, which was topped by Fermin Aldeguer.

Pedro Acosta, Brad Binder, and Augusto Fernandez were among the riders caught out in the rain on slick tyres, the intensity of the precipitation making conditions flip quickly from full dry to full wet. Fortunately, none of them crashed on their way back to the pits, although Acosta did run into the gravel at turn one.

There remains a possibility of rain affecting the afternoon practices as well, but thankfully it did not interfere with the track cleaning operations after the Asia Talent Cup session.