Stoner unsure he can help Lorenzo adapt to Ducati

Lorenzo languished down in 17th on the opening day of the Sepang test, and spoke afterwards about how he was struggling to change his riding style to suit the Desmosedici, especially under braking.

On the other hand, Stoner topped the timesheets, 1.7s quicker than Lorenzo, although the three-time champion managed to improve to eighth on Tuesday, a second off the pace of Suzuki rider Andrea Iannone.

Addressing reporters on Tuesday, Stoner said he believes Lorenzo simply needs more time to get his head around the peculiarities of the GP17 – but doesn't think he can do much to speed up the process.

"I don't know if I can help him [Lorenzo] so much," Stoner said. "It's been a long time for him on one manufacturer, more than anybody else in this paddock other than Dani [Pedrosa].

"It will take time for him to adapt. They [the Yamaha and Ducati] are polar opposites in a lot of ways, with engine power, and characteristics.

"He'll take a little bit of time, but speaking with him [on Monday], he was in quite good spirits to be honest, and taking things step by step – pushing each thing aside as he tries something, sees if he likes going that way or not. It will take time, and we have that before the first race.

"I'm not too concerned at this point, just need to let Jorge and Cristian [Gabbarini, crew chief] work together with the team and find that nice balance where he's comfortable.

"Cristian already seems quite happy working with Jorge and his direction, his clarity. Everything seems really good."

Back in action on Wednesday

Stoner sat out Tuesday as Ducati's third bike went to Michele Pirro, but the 2007 and 2011 MotoGP champion confirmed he will be back for the third and final day of the Sepang test.

"We got a few laps on everybody on Thursday [during private testing], but I think I only got about 20 laps in before the weather hit us, and we didn't get a lot of data," said Stoner.

"So yesterday was very good for us to re-confirm everything in a nice, long session – we definitely got very positive answers with a reasonably dry track, which is hard to find these days here.

"But the weather hampered our programme yesterday, and as I wasn't testing today we didn't get to finish a couple of things we needed to.

"Tomorrow hopefully will give us some better weather, some better data and we can continue where we left off yesterday and find some more positives."

Additional reporting by Scherazade Mulia Saraswati