Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa were back at work this week, the Repsol Honda duo – who are currently first and second in the 2014 MotoGP World Championship – finishing a private three-day test at the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic today.
The team went to Brno directly after the German round last weekend and the test concluded today at lunchtime. Both riders tested their current 2014 RC213Vs as well as next year’s prototype.
Pedrosa completed 16 laps today on his 2014 bike with Marquez turning in 41 laps on his current bike and five laps on the 2015 machine.
“The test has gone pretty well, especially on this final day as the track had a good level of grip,” Marquez said. “The times began to look good and we were able to try out some other things as well as confirm some feelings on the 2015 prototype. Overall, the most important thing that we take away from this test is that we were able to try this new bike and give some positive feedback. Moreover, Honda also brought us some new parts for our current RC213V machine and we were able to test with the electronics and the brakes, plus some different setups to what we have been using up to now. We are happy with how it went, because we’ve put in a lot of laps and gathered a lot of data. Now we can take a break, which we all certainly deserve.”
Pedrosa was also pleased with how things went in the three-day test.
“In the end we have put in a lot of laps,” the Spaniard said. “The weather was good to us and we were able to try many things, in particular some small adjustments to the bike. Some changes have been made thinking more about the future, but others can be used more immediately at the next few races. Overall I am happy with the three days, because we have been able to take some steps forward with the electronics; we’ll see if that gives us any improvement on the bike. We were also able to test the new bike and put in our first kilometers with it, but we will have to keep testing it further down the line in order to continue to with development.”
Marquez crashed three times during the test – twice on the first day and once on the second. None of his crashes were on the new bike.
“The second day went fairly well, although the grip level was still not as high as we would have liked in order to correctly carry out the testing that we had planned,” Marquez said on Wednesday. “When we wanted to go a little faster to get closer to the limit and evaluate things, it was very risky. Giving it a try this morning I had another crash at turn five. Once again, I lost grip with the front end. During the day we were able to try out the new bike and the first impressions are fairly good. Obviously there are positive things and not-so-positive things, but the first impression is satisfactory. We put in similar times with the new bike to what we did with the current model, so we are happy.”
The team will now pack up in the Czech Republic and take a three-week break before returning to action at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix the second weekend of August.
