Common hot and humid conditions welcomed the MotoGP World Championship at their return to the Sepang International Circuit for the first official day of testing in 2022, whereby the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team pair of Darryn Binder and Andrea Dovizioso kicked off and continued their pre-season preparations.

Darryn completed his fourth full day of testing in Malaysia, after the rookie had the chance to fruitfully use three days of shakedown test earlier this week. The South African, who steps up from Moto3 to MotoGP directly this year, made further progress aboard the Yamaha YZR-M1 and clocked a personal best of 2:00.818 minutes today after 45 laps.

Before the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team is heading over to the newly added Mandalika Circuit in Indonesia next week, they will have a second and final day of testing at the 5.543-kilometer venue to further explore the potential of bikes and riders in preparation of the 2022 season.

DARRYN BINDER

“Today we finished the first day of the official test here in Sepang. We worked hard today, I was working in a lot of different areas and tried some different things compared to the shakedown test. The end result was very similar to the final day of the shakedown test, which I wish I could have improved a lot more. I felt like we worked quite a lot during the day and I thought this is really going to reflect at the end of the day, but anyway, this is testing. I felt a little bit faster step by step, especially with the used tyres. We will try again tomorrow and see what happens. We’ll just keep on working, keep on trying to learn and slowly but surely understand how everything works and see in which direction to go.”