Michael Scott | March 12, 2017
Vinales finishes P1 in the final MotoGP preseason test
With just two weeks to the first GP, Maverick Vinales underscored his role as favorite title challenger, setting fastest time yet again. The new Movistar Yamaha rider has led all four pre-season tests, starting at Valencia in his first Yamaha outing last year.
But the margin was promisingly small for his rivals. The top nine were within half-a-second of Vinales; the top 13 inside one second. The top four were all inside last year’s pole time. And the top three were all on different makes of bike.
Vinales took over top spot from new Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo with just over two hours to go on the third and fastest day, and stayed there while the order shuffled.
By the time dew settled, bringing proceedings to the usual slightly premature end, Andrea Dovizioso had moved into second on the other factory Ducati; and Dani Pedrosa had pushed up to third with a late charge after an until-then typically unobtrusive performance.
Vinales’s best time of 1m54.330 was just 0.071 faster than Dovizioso, with similar margins for the next pair of riders.
“I’m really happy,” he said. “We made another step with the bike and I feel comfortable, even on race pace. We can still better the electronics and gain a couple of tenths – we’re not on the bike’s limit and we can still push a bit more.”
Lorenzo dropped to fourth – significantly his best since his Ducati switch and leaving him “optimistic about the first race here”.
Aspar Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista was next, then Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha) sixth. A late improvement from Scott Redding (Pramac Ducati) put him an unexpected seventh, ahead of flying rookie Jonas Folger, whose fellow-rookie team-mate Johann Zarco completed the top ten, the Monster Yamaha duo sandwiching a hard-working Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda).
Marc Marquez had earlier been right up at the front, but the defending champion missed the final flurry after a tumble, his third of the day and fourth of the weekend. The Repsol Honda rider was not hurt, but by the end had dropped to 11th.
“It was my fault … but when you are doing a long run, you have to push,” he said, pronouncing himself happy with his pace and (like team-mate Pedrosa) that Honda was starting the season stronger than last year.
Only three riders had failed to improve on earlier times – Rossi, four tenths adrift of his stellar new team-mate, plus 12th-fastest Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and the returned injury victim Tito Rabat (EG-VDS Honda), who was 20th.
Rossi’s day two time had put him second to Vinales, but he admitted that “this is my most difficult pre-season with Yamaha”, as he still hunted for the right feeling on the revised Yamaha. “We put in a lot of effort to go a bit slower … I think we are still not ready, and we don’t understand 100 percent how to make the bike at the maximum.”
Jack Miller (VDS Honda) was 16th, behind Ecstar Suzuki rookie Alex Rins, but still only just over a second adrift, and satisfied with “some quality laps. I’m pretty happy with my consistency. I wasn’t quite as fast as I’d have liked, but it means I have something up my sleeve when we come back here to race.”
Andrea Iannone was 13th as he adapts to the Ecstar Suzuki, saying: “We are improving. Very slowly. But improving.”
Rossi had crashed on day two, injuring his left hand slightly, and one of a huge number of fallers on the difficult circuit, prone to being very slippery off line, made slippery by dew, and with a notorious bump at Turn Two.
Marquez with three falls had the most, along with Aleix Espargaro. Others to fall included Lorenzo, Bautista, Rins, Miller, Lowes and Smith.
Check out Ducati’s new aero package!
Despite earlier denials, Ducati’s version of ban-busting aerodynamics appeared at the final round of tests – and in line with the winglet-pioneering Italian company’s aggressive stance on aerodynamics, it was the most radical yet.
Like Aprilia and Suzuki, Ducati espouse ducting up at handlebar level. But theirs is the most dramatic looking, with large shaped ducts either side of a very narrow fairing nose, reminiscent of F1 car aerodynamics.
Ducati chief Gigi Dall’Igna had said at the last round of tests in Australia that there were no such plans before the first race in Qatar. Yet few were surprised when the dramatic nose-cone appeared on day two of the tests, ridden by Dovizioso; with team new boy Lorenzo also testing it on the final day.
Dovizioso’s impression was positive, in that it “was similar to the wings last year – though a little bit less.” There were positives and negatives, he continued; while Ducati Corse boss Dall’Igna said: “It is similar to last year. The wheelie problem is reduced quite a lot but in the middle of the corner we have some problems [with turning].”
They would examine the data, and decide during the next week, he said.
The design might have one drawback, given regulations freezing fairing design. While (for example) Yamaha will be able to adjust the vanes inside their ducts, as long as the outside of the fairing remains unchanged, Ducati’s solution is more holistic, with no hidden areas that can be altered.
It remains to be seen, however, just how Dorna’s technical chief Danny Aldridge – who has the final say – will interpret the rules, and if he will allow Ducati to make visible internal ducting changes if the outside silhouette remains the same.
Honda’s new fairing
Honda also finally debuted their version of a fairing with downforce ducts, with Marquez testing it on the first day at Qatar … and blaming it as a factor in a crash after only a few laps at the final corner, due to the front end bottoming out. (He did also admit he had left his braking later than usual.)
Unlike the other designs, HRC’s looked the most amateurish, with handlebar-level ducts looking pop-riveted to the outside of the fairing. This might however be deceptive.
The tack-on fairing didn’t make another appearance, with Marquez exercising another different design on day three, with a jutting very large front intake, and potentially
This leaves only KTM yet to show any fairing ducting as a way round the 2017 ban on projecting wings.
The regulations allow one fairing upgrade per season, although with no date-line this appears to allow a choice of two different designs almost from the start.
Designs will be homologated before the first race.
MotoGP and the Raging Rookies
The performance of MotoGP rookies – especially Jonas Folger – again proved impressive, and an interesting measure of how the nature of MotoGP bikes has been tamed by dumbing-down technical regs such as the control electronics.
Even so, Folger’s speed was astonishing. Fourth-fastest at the last round of tests in Australia, he was once again right up at the sharp end. On day one he was sixth; and third-fastest on the second.
He ended up eighth after more fast laps on the final and fastest day.
“If anyone had told me this before the season, I would have shaken my head,” he said.
His Monster Yamaha team-mate, Moto2 champion Johann Zarco, was also well up to speed, placed tenth with his preferred “step by step” approach.
Karel Abraham also exceeded expectations at a track that clearly suits Ducati, placing fourth on day one, ending up 14th, one place ahead or Suzuki rookie Rins.
Sam Lowes was finding it harder on the Aprilia, placed 19th, more than 1.8 seconds off the pace.
The improving Aprilia
In its second year after nudging at the top ten last season, Aprilia’s RS-GP is back stronger, but still not fully mature, according to team chief Romano Albesiano.
New rider Aleix Espargaro was fifth on day two, but dropped to 12th after a crash on day three ruled him out of the last rush for lap times.
Said Albesiano, “At Valencia already Aleix was fast, and the first thing he asked for was more torque. We have given him some, but not so much.
“But we are still very young – this is just the second year of this project, and we are growing up.”
Still a way to go for KTM in MotoGP
The youngest bike in MotoGP is KTM, and the two regular riders Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro along with factory tester Mika Kallio occupied the bottom three places on the final time sheets, in that order.
But the all-new bike was, said technical chief Mike Leitner, “ready to race, although not to fight for good results.”
The Austrians had brought a new chassis and an upgraded engine among a raft of parts, and each day the riders were the first out while others waited for the afternoon heat to abate, ploughing through a big test programme.
Leitner was pleased with the top speed, but admitted there was a lot of progress still required. “We are beginners. It will be a long tough season for us,” he said.