Honda starting to make progress with troubled 2016 MotoGP bike

The Japanese manufacturer's 2015 struggles carried over into this year's first pre-season running at Sepang, with neither rider able to get within one second of Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo on the days the world champion topped.

Pairing the Honda's aggressive power delivery with MotoGP's new control electronics was at the heart of the problems.

After Wednesday's opening day of the test in Australia was marred by rain, Marquez was near the top of the times all day on Thursday, and ultimately finished second, 0.161 seconds behind Maverick Vinales.

"We can draw good conclusions from the testing we did - because it seems that here we have found a base set-up that can work well," Marquez said.

"It's true that this is a special track, in which you have to be careful about what you test because it might confuse you at other circuits, but I am happy with how the day went overall.

"We'll see if we can continue improving tomorrow, because we can still make a lot of progress with the balance of the bike; I still don't feel fully comfortable with it."

While Dani Pedrosa fell late in the day just after setting the time that put him eighth, he echoed his team-mate's view that headway was being made.

"Today I had a crash at Turn 4, but luckily I'm fine," he said.

"I was setting good times and improving on that run, but when I was trying to brake a little harder, I lost the front and crashed.

"We still don't have a clear set-up, but we understand many aspects of the behaviour of the bike that will help us find a good base for every circuit.

"Despite the gap on the timesheets, it's been a positive day, because we know that this is a track where I struggle a bit compared with others and we have worked hard, which has allowed us to obtain a lot of data".