Randy de Puniet topped the timesheets for the second day in a row as Moto GP testing continued at Sepang in Malaysia.

The 26-year-old Frenchman recovered from a crash during the morning to lap in 2:01.139 on his LCR Honda - two tenths of a second quicker than he managed on day one.

As he did on day one, de Puniet was focusing on chassis development as his team were still without their 2008-spec Honda engine. He was helped by temperatures remaining consistent rather than edging up, as had been predicted.

Two tenths of a second slower and in the same boat as de Puniet as far as engines were concerned, was Colin Edwards' Tech-3 Yamaha, the American again out-pacing the works machine of Valentino Rossi.

Five time world champion Rossi focused on getting as many miles on his previously unreliable pneumatic valve engine as possible and also worked on improving the fly-by-wire throttle on his Bridgestone-tyred bike.

His Michelin-shod team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was right behind and was on tyre evaluation duty all day.

Both were still faster than world champion Casey Stoner, although the Ducati rider was happy with his pace.

Kawasaki had their strongest showing of the pre-season so far as new signing John Hopkins went sixth quickest while concentrating on short runs.

A tad worrying though, was that Hopkins and his team-mate Anthony West both rejected Kawasaki's brand-new chassis in favour of an updated version of their 2007 bike after deciding the radical new frame still needs a lot of development work.

Seventh was the man that replaced Hopkins at Suzuki, Loris Capirossi. The Italian was running a back-to-back brake comparison with Chris Vermeulen and was happy with the team's progress.

"The more I work with the bike and my crew the more I understand the GSV-R and what will be best for me in the future," said Capirossi.

"I did a lot more laps today and every time we change parts or settings I feel my knowledge of the bike increases and I'm feeling more and more at home.

"I am confident that with combination of the best parts and settings that I have tested I can go quite a bit quicker than I have done so far, and most importantly the more I understand the GSV-R the more we can make it a better race bike."

The top ten was rounded out by a trio of Hondas with Andrea Dovizioso's JiR-Scot machine ahead of the Gresini-run version of Shinya Nakano and 2006 world champion Nicky Hayden, who looked no closer to getting comfortable on his Repsol bike than he did last year.

Briton James Toseland, who had been 13th fastest on day one, improved to 11th for Tech-3 and was 1.1 seconds off the ultimate pace after completing 59 laps during the day.

The d'Antin duo of Toni Elias - who is still struggling to shake off the effects of an operation on a long-standing shoulder injury - and Sylvain Guintoli were again slow, while test riders Niccolo Canepa and Tamaki Serizawa both found themselves at the tail end of the field as they were seconded to heavy fuel runs on old tyres.

One notable absentee from the test was Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa, who instead flew home to Barcelona overnight after breaking his hand in a day one crash.

The test continues for one more day.

Eurosport