Lorenzo hails "huge improvement" after second day at Sepang

The Spaniard was nearly two seconds off the pace on the opening day of 2017 running on the Ducati, admitting he was very surprised by his lack of speed.

Things improved for Lorenzo on Tuesday, however, the three-time champion finishing just a second off the pace set by Suzuki's Andrea Iannone and less than a tenth behind teammate Andrea Dovizioso.

"Yesterday was a shock to find some difficulties to be competitive, but I expected it was just a question of time and now it's much more natural for me and I can push more and be faster," said Lorenzo.

"There is still a long way to reach the limit with this bike and this track, but we are much closer, and the progress has been huge so we should be very satisfied with the work today.

"Today I could brake later and better, so it's a huge improvement."

Despite finishing far from the fastest times, Lorenzo insisted he sees no reasons to be worried, as other Ducati riders have shown the bike is competitive.

"I'm calm because I see [Alvaro] Bautista, [Casey] Stoner and Dovi running strongly," he added. "They are riders who are at least at my level. It's a matter of time, as I always say.

"The bike is competitive enough to win races as we saw last year. You have to try to find your limit."

The Ducati rider, eighth quickest on Tuesday, conceded he still needed to improve under braking and on extracting more from the bike on new tyres.

"I still need to improve under braking. Even though I took a big step forward, I still don't know how to make my braking more effective," he said.

"I still don't know how to extract the maximum from the new tyres with this bike, and when I try to push a bit more, the speed is the same and I don't improve.

"Maybe it's not the bike that improves the most when using new tyres, like the Yamaha or the Suzuki, and that has its upsides and its downsides."

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont