Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was the fastest of the MotoGP testers today at Motorland Aragon in Spain, but the MotoGP World Championship points leader didn’t better Dani Pedrosa’s best lap from yesterday.
Lorenzo spent yesterday testing chassis settings, but today the Spaniard tried a different engine specification and general bike settings in preparation for the Grand Prix at Aragon later this month. Lorenzo completed 64 laps yesterday and 77 today, including a race simulation this afternoon. Lorenzo’s best lap of the test came today – a 1:48.351.
“Today was a very long day, we made a race simulation at the end of the session so I feel very tired but it was necessary to see the performance of the rear tire,” Lorenzo said in a team release today. “In general we leave here with happiness and confidence as we’ve been one second faster than last time. We need to try and improve consistency over race distance here.”
Lorenzo’s teammate also put in plenty of laps, the Texan lapping Motorland Aragon 95 times yesterday and 76 today. He ended with the third best lap of the two-day test – a 1:48.946.
“We basically tested the bike over race distance here and completed a race simulation to set the bike up with a focus on the end of the race,” Spies said. “We worked on some different fork and shock settings and a little bit of electronics, but nothing major. We were mainly fine-tuning the bike and the results seem good. I’m positive for the rest of the year. The package we have now was good over the race simulation so I’m optimistic for the race.”
Pedrosa, meanwhile, tried a new exhaust and a modified rear shock on his RC213V today.
“Today I tested a new exhaust, just to see if we can get a better drivability from the engine and we found some positives that can help us in the next races,” Pedrosa said. “We also tried a different rear shock to get more grip. In general it’s been a positive test, so I’m happy about the work we did and now we are focusing on the next races where we will try to maintain the same level. We were not looking for a lap time here, but on working on improving the bike. It’s been good to be back testing after the last two good races in Indy and Brno and now it’s time to recover some energy to go to Misano and push again to the maximum.”
Pedrosa was joined again today by Jonathan Rea, the World Superbike rider who is filling in for the injured Casey Stoner. Rea had to stop a bit earlier than the rest to make a flight to Germany where he will compete in the World Superbike round this weekend at the Nurburgring. Rea will make his MotoGP debut the following weekend in Misano, Italy. His best lap of the test came today – a 1:50.057.
“I’m happy with the test we did here in Aragon,” Rea said. “Now we’re not looking at the lap times so much, but the gap to the front which is decreasing every test, so I’m happy with that. Yesterday we did a lot of work with the base setting and we confirmed that this morning. I’m still not completely happy finishing the corner, but this afternoon I did a long run and my fastest lap came at the end, so I need to push these tires much harder and it’s a question of trust. It’s been a good opportunity to test before the race; the Repsol Honda team gave me the best opportunity, knowing the bike and the circuit and I am constantly learning. Now I’m going to Germany to race in Superbikes this weekend, so it will be a busy period for me but I will try to take advantage of it and enjoy it as much as I can.”
