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It was 7:30 in the evening, and we were standing on the porch of the Petronas Yamaha SRT hospitality chalet, talking to Fabio Quartararo about how his day had gone when the rain came. It was a brief, intense shower filling the air with the sweet scent that comes when rain falls after a period of intense heat. It seemed a somehow fitting end to one of the most intriguing MotoGP tests in years.

The weather had played a major role in the test, though this time, for all the right reasons. Normally, test days at Sepang are disrupted in the late afternoon by a heavy rainfall, leaving teams trying to cram as much work as possible into the mornings, and hoping that the track dries out in the afternoon. Every shower brings dust and dirt to the track, washing away some of the rubber laid down on the track, slowing the track down.

But not this time. There was a brief thunderstorm on Monday night, but that was the last rain to fall at the circuit until Friday night. Three full days of a dry track, the pace increasing as more and more rubber got laid down. It should hardly be surprising that Jorge Lorenzo's fastest ever lap of the circuit, set last year, should be broken. But that it should be broken by nearly six tenths of a second, and by six riders, is a sign both of just how good the track conditions were, and just how competitive the field is currently in MotoGP.

The first day of the Sepang MotoGP test is always met with some trepidation. For the factories, have they responded to the feedback from before the winter break correctly, and developed the bikes in the right direction? For the riders, has their winter training program been enough to prepare them for riding a MotoGP bike, and will they hold up under the battering which nearly 300hp and carbon brakes will inflict upon them? And for injured riders, is their recovery going to plan, or are they ahead or behind on schedule?

With all these questions on their minds, the MotoGP paddock tends to ease in to the first day of the test. Especially if, as looks likely, the weather will hold and they will not lose much track time to the tropical rains which can fall in the afternoon. The first day is used for verifying the data from the Valencia and Jerez tests, checking engine configurations once again, and getting the riders' minds accustomed to the sensation of over 320 km/h again. It is a day of gentle evolution, rather than radical revolution.

Visible and invisible

As a consequence, a stroll down pit lane on Wednesday morning did not reveal a great deal of technical novelty. The Ducati GP19s looked very similar to the GP18s, with the exception of the newer aero package from the second half of the year. The teardrop fork upper covers were back to assist with cooling in the heat – and with clear skies, the sun is brutal, and air temperatures are high.

After a day of prevarication, Yamaha (with the blessing of the other factories) finally cracked down on the media presence at Sepang, locking the gates to pit lane as well as the side of the track. Anyone who wasn't a member of a team wasn't getting in, and the factories could work in peace. All except Honda, who had packed up on Saturday, giving Stefan Bradl an extra day's rest ahead of the official test starting on Wednesday.

Aleix Espargaro joined the action, riding the Aprilia RS-GP alongside test rider Bradley Smith, though Andrea Iannone sat out the day with what was reported to be a minor health issue with his teeth. Jonas Folger also took to the track for Yamaha, but as he and Yamaha's other test rider, Katsuyuki Nakasuga, swapped between the two test bikes, it was hard to tell who was setting which times. Both riders looked pretty fast, and Nakasuga was doing so with the benefit of an extra day's experience. Jonas Folger had a crash in the middle of the day, causing a red flag, though Folger continued testing after the flag appeared.

The first day of the shakedown test at Sepang is over, and it was very much a shakedown as it is meant to be. The MotoGP bikes shared the track with the factory Superbike machines being readied for the Suzuka 8 Hour race in July, but all of the factory test riders bar Yamaha got some laps done in preparation for the official test which starts on Wednesday.

It was Ducati's Michele Pirro and Aprilia's Bradley Smith who were busiest, both riders paving the way for their factory riders. The urgency is highest for Smith, as Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone are set to take the track on Sunday, the last day of the shakedown test.

Mika Kallio was paving the way for KTM, the Finnish rider forced to switch numbers from 36 to 66, Suzuki's Joan Mir having taken precedence for #36 as a full-time contracted rider. Kallio had a lot of work to do, ensuring that the bikes were ready for all four KTM riders at the test. In the end, he rode seven different bikes on Friday, including test bikes and the factory Red Bull and satellite Tech3 machines, he told Crash.net's Peter McLaren.

Stefan Bradl was turning laps for Honda, while Sylvain Guintoli was busy for Suzuki. Bradl was mostly running short exits, according to Italian website GPOne.com.

If you looked very carefully at the Repsol Honda 2019 livery, you could see a difference. A touch more black under the tail. A dash more white on the tank, and a different line here and there. But other than a large sticker celebrating 25 years of collaboration between Repsol and HRC, the differences were almost impossible to see.

And why should they change? In the previous 24 seasons together, Repsol and Honda have won the premier class championship 14 times, a strike rate of nearly 60%. Marc Márquez, Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Nicky Hayden, and Alex Crivillé have all become world champions wearing Repsol colors. Repsol Honda riders have a combined 168 wins, 427 podiums, and 177 poles between them. So why ditch that in pursuit of novelty? The Repsol livery is proven, and it is timeless. And so it stays as it was, no matter how much the crowd bays for change.

Ducati launched their 2019 MotoGP campaign at the Philip Morris R&D cube in Neuchâtel, Switzerland this evening. The Mission Winnow Ducati team, as it is now called, consisting of Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci were presented to the world on stage in Switzerland, in a new livery with a lot more red and a lot less white in it compared to previous years, in a throwback to the 2008 color scheme. Like that color scheme, there is a link to Philip Morris once again, though this time, indirectly. But much more on that later.

In a tightly-scripted presentation, Ducati managed to let slip just enough information to make the presentation interesting, without giving too much away. But what they did let slip was enough to allow observers to read between the lines for an insight into the factory. Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall'Igna spoke briefly about the bike for 2019, but more importantly, sketched a picture of how the team and the team's two riders will function in much more of a partnership. This was in stark contrast to the combative atmosphere which prevailed when Ducati had both Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo aiming to win the championship.