Positive first test day for the Repsol Honda Team riders in Sepang, who showed up this morning with the new decoration of their bikes for the 2006 season.
With temperatures above 30ºC and a humidity of almost 90%, the riders of the Repsol Honda Team started today, at the Malaysian circuit of Sepang, the first of three planned test days, which are part of the intense 2006 preseason. After the tests carried out in the same venue in late January and the following tests in Australia’s Phillip Island just one week ago, the MotoGP riders are back into action today in Malaysia under suffocating weather conditions.
Today the Repsol Honda Team riders gave colour to the test, appearing early in the morning with the definitive 2006 decoration on their bikes. Pedrosa, in addition to debuting on his bike, also had his premiere with his new suit, the same he is going to use during the 2006 season wearing the Repsol colours.
In addition to the new outfit and colours, Dani Pedrosa played also a leading role being one of the fastest on the Malaysian circuit, setting the second best time behind Marco Melandri. Covering a total of 100 laps in Sepang -554 kilometres -, Pedrosa’s fastest time was 2’01.89, quite similar to the best time he set in Sepang after the three day test in late January (2’01.59). Dani and his team focussed this first day on the set-up of the suspensions in the morning and on Michelin tyre tests in the afternoon.Team-mate Nicky Hayden continues intensively working on the evolution of the RC211V 2006, a slow and industrious work that sometimes demands a whole lot of patience and consistence.
After covering a total of 72 laps on the Malaysian circuit – 493 kilometres -, his fastest time of today (2’02.86) is still far behind the best time he set in late January in Sepang (2’01.69).The tests in Sepang will continue tomorrow, Wednesday, and will end on Thursday 16. After these tests, the MotoGP riders will be back into action in Barcelona on March 3, 4 and 5 at the MotoGP Test, the first official tests of the 2006 season.
Dani Pedrosa:
‘Today we used for the first time the decoration and colour on our bikes; I was really looking forward to it. There are still some finishing touches left but everything will be ready for the start of the season, so I’m happy. This first test day has been good in general terms; the track was a bit slippery early in the morning, I guess it was due to yesterday’s rain, but it’s been improving along the day. It rained a bit after lunch and we had to stop for a while, but then the track was OK and we kept on working. In the morning we were basically testing settings and different configurations for the set-up and in the afternoon, right when it began to rain, we had planned to test several Michelin tyres, but eventually only managed to test a few.’
Nicky Hayden:
‘Well, this has been another hard testing day where we’ve been constantly getting in and out of the garage. To be honest, this hasn’t been a great day, as we would have liked, and therefore we sat down with the team at the end of the day to try to solve things. I basically need to feel more confidence about the front end, to try to set the times I set only one month ago. I know that there’s still a lot to do, so we have to keep on working hard, keeping always a positive attitude.’
Unofficial times
- Marco Melandri 2.01’66
- Dani Pedrosa 2.01’89
- Colin Edwards 2.02’00
- John Hopkins 2.02’15
- Valentino Rossi 2.02’20
- Loris Capirossi 2.02’64
- Randy De Puniet 2.02’75
- Nicky Hayden 2.02’86
- Carlos Checa 2.03’40
- Casey Stoner 2.03’43
- Sete Gibernau 2.03’51
- Toni Elias 2.03’52
- Kenny Roberts 2.03’58
- Makoto Tamada 2.03’66
- Shinya Nakano 2.04’02
