Fiat Yamaha concluded its MotoGP testing early at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia with Jorge Lorenzo gracing the top of the timesheets ahead of Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner and Yamaha teammate, Valentino Rossi. With a half-day left available on Wednesday, other teams are taking full advantage of the opportunity to continue fine-tuning changes before the winter break.
But Lorenzo and Rossi will now focus their efforts on some rest and relaxation before returning to the next testing session in early February at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia. Brimming with confidence after a successful test, the Mallorcan said, "I am happy that we are so competitive here with this new version of the bike. I was able to do some very fast laps and it feels good to be the fastest on the last day of the season. There is a long time now until the next test and it is good for me mentally to know that I was fast today."
Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner may have to alter his riding style to adapt to the new engine configuration on his Desmosedici.
Ducati will continue its testing tomorrow as Stoner and teammate, Nicky Hayden, work with new forks and a revised engine configuration. The Aussie has also been assessing a new softer rear tire that Bridgestone brought to the circuit specifically for the MotoGP riders. When asked about the new engine, Stoner said, "It probably means I can’t get on the gas as hard and fast out of the corners but can keep it open more further in the corners."
2009 World Superbike champion Ben Spies was back out today and made significant improvement with his new Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine. The American moved up the timesheets to fourth ahead of Hayden and Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa. Pedrosa and teammate, Andrea Dovizioso took a step-by-step approach to the improvements being made to the RC212V.
The Spaniard commented on their progress, “We completed a useful day’s testing today, and although I didn’t do a huge number of laps, we covered quite a lot of ground. Some of the adjustments we were making with the machine and suspension were quite big to allow us to fully understand the new chassis, and with these kind of changes you inevitably spend quite a lot of time in the pits. Also, we weren’t going after ultimate lap times - just continuing to get familiar with the new parts and understand how settings changes affect the performance. That’s normal, and now is the time to do this work, step-by-step. Tomorrow we’ll come back here for the final session of the season.”
The 2009 250cc World Champion Hiroshi Aoyama continues to get familiar with the new premier-class Honda.
1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 1:31.939
2. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1:32.195
3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1:32.528
4. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1:32.942
5. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 1:32.981
6. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1:33.025
7. Randy De Puniet (Honda) 1:33.111
8. Mika Kallio (Ducati) 1:33.125
9. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) 1:33.211
10. Marco Melandri (Honda) 1:33.326
11. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati) 1:33.345
12. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) 1:33.546
13. Hector Barbera (Aspar Team) 1:34.206
14. Marco Simoncelli (Ducati) 1:34.230
15. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki) 1:34.540
16. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) 1:35.261
17. Xavier Simeon (Honda) 1:37.279
18. Joan Olive (Promoracing) 1:37.881
Rider Quotes:
Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha:
"We have worked on some electronics and the suspension, and we have compared the new chassis to the old one and taken a lot of important information for our engineers. I am so happy about my season, I've won three races, taken many podiums and finished second in the championship. I think this is a great achievement by us and now I would like to wish everyone a good holiday to recover so we all come back in February at the maximum ready to work again!"
Casey Stoner posted the second-fastest time during the penultimate day of testing at Valencia.
“We weren’t able to make much use of the day yesterday because of the high winds but today the conditions were much better. The new engine setting, which I am preferring so far, changes the performance of the bike in different ways, for example in corner exit, so we have to modify the set-up in order to get the most out of it. I also have to get used to it and adapt my riding style accordingly. We also tried out the new Bridgestone, which seem to work well. In general I’m very pleased with how things are going.”
Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha:
"I am happy about what we have so far with the new evolution of the bike, because it's already faster and already feels better than the old one. The throttle is easier to open and I think that Yamaha has done a good job so far. We were quite fast today and I'm happy about the work we have done over these two days. I think that we have given our engineers plenty to work on over the winter and I am looking forward to the next updates in February. It's good to finally finish work and now we have some months to relax and recharge the batteries ahead of next year, which for sure is going to be a big, big fight!"
Nicky Hayden - Ducati Marlboro Team:
“Today we worked mainly on confirming our impressions from yesterday, running some more tests on the new forks and a bunch of other things on the bike set-up and with the new tires. We have improved a few tenths here and there – the gap to the really fast group is still there but it has been a positive day, we have done a lot of laps and gathered a lot of data. We’ll do some more tests tomorrow on the engine settings and other set-up alterations. We also need to push hard to get the lap times down and close that gap to the lead group.”
Repsol Honda's Andrea Dovizioso added a couple of personalized marks to the RC212V during Day 2 testing when he high-sided it.
“This morning we started well. I went out with a soft tire that I used from the day before and I did my best lap really early on - on lap eight - and I had a good feeling out there. The track conditions and temperature were better than yesterday and allowed us to get through some useful work. When we changed from soft to hard tires, I was trying to bring them up to temperature by sliding a little bit when I high-sided without warning. I’ve injured my hip a little and it’s painful - but I carried on riding and fortunately the pain is not so bad when I’m on the bike. Overall though, I was much more satisfied today - especially with the braking stability - and we’ll continue testing a few more things tomorrow, focusing on the chassis.”
Marco Melandri - San Carlo Honda Gresini:
“I’m satisfied of today’s work even if we are still not so fast on the single lap time. For me this is a complete new machine to the one I used in 2007 and it is important to understand it. Today I could improve my pace and I did my best lap time with a tire that had many laps, this makes me confident. Today we tested some solutions to improve the traction and the feeling with the tires. We are working in the right direction. Tomorrow we have in mind some solutions also to use better the soft tyre as today I used one but I kind of spoiled it because at that moment I didn’t have the best set up.”
Marco Simoncelli - San Carlo Honda Gresini:
“Today the confidence with the bike improved as yesterday everything was new for me and I was riding more carefully. For sure we have a lot of work to do ahead us but today I could lap faster and things came easier. Yesterday I struggled to feel the front while today I had more confidence thanks to the set up modifications and my improved confidence in the tires. Today I also tried a start without the launch control and my feeling that it was a good start, my feeling was good, I don’t know from outside.”
San Carlo Honda Gresini's Marco(s) - Marco Simoncelli and Marco Melandri.
“Yesterday we have tried to understand what happened on Sunday’s race when I struggled with rear grip issues and today we have found a good solution to that problem. We worked on Öhlins suspension new link and on the chassis geometry to make the bike more stable in the corners. I am pretty satisfied about the things we have fixed in the last two days as those data will be helpful for the 2010 machine which we are going to test in February. In two weeks time I will remove the screws from my left ankle and will keep on training to be in a good form at Sepang”.
Hiroshi Aoyama - Interwetten Honda MotoGP:
“Today I continue testing mainly without electronics control because the priority at the moment for me is to understand the character of the bike and to adapt my riding style to the bike. I still have to get used to the carbon brakes but compared to yesterday my feeling improved. Today the track conditions were better but and I also felt more comfortable.”
Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki:
“It has been a positive day because we have continued to develop the bike and we tested many different things. We tested a new engine specification and a couple of sets of pipes, as well as a different electronics system on the bike. We have improved today and the whole team is quite happy and for sure the way to go quicker is now not so far away. We have a couple more important things to try tomorrow, especially on the electronics side. I think that the condition we had in the bike today was easily the best for the whole weekend and this is why we went much better. We still need to concentrate really hard and tomorrow will be an important day as will the test next week in Portugal for Álvaro and Nobu, because we need to understand as much about the bike in these tests as possible.”
Mika Kallio - Pramac Racing:
"We have tried aluminum swingarm and compared to yesterday we have improved by six tenths of a second. Not too bad I would say. Work with the team went ahead without any big complications, on the contrary, in addition to the swingarm we tried other small changes that lead me to feel more comfortable riding the bike. I hope that tomorrow morning I can improve more to end positively my first year in MotoGP."
Aleix Espargarò - Pramac Racing:
"I do not know why but despite the time recorded today is good I feel I can do better. I must be patience because I still have a lot to learn in this category. Certainly my feeling with the bike is improving lap after lap and this is the most important thing. Sincerely we are a little sad because I know this winter I will miss very much my bike, but we will return loads in February for the first test of the year."
