Three-day Phillip Island test ends positively with Hayden fastest Honda.
The Repsol Honda Team finished a hard working pre-season test session in Australia today (Saturday) satisfied with the work done and information gathered.
Max Biaggi and Nicky Hayden, along with many of the riders and teams competing in the 2005 17-round championship, will return back to their respective bases after three days testing in Sepang, Malaysia last week and three days at Phillip Island this week. For Biaggi and Hayden it was a case of putting the 2005-spec RC211V through its paces with much work done on testing the minute effects that small adjustments make to the suspension, and the engines electrical management systems together with putting in countless laps gathering information for tyre provider Michelin using new compound rubber.
Since making the first tentative steps onto a race bike at Sepang at the end of January since breaking his ankle in November, Biaggi has made startling progress and feels that his new team, his bike and his physical condition are as good as he could have wished for with some seven weeks remaining before the first GP at Jerez, Spain on April 10th. Hayden continues to build on a solid base with his new team under the watchful eye of legendary GP man, Erv Kanemoto, who in his position of the teams Technical Director will be advising and aiding both Hayden and Biaggi. 23-year-old Hayden, who lists Phillip Island amongst his favourite tracks, ended the three-day test posting a stunning lap time, some 1.6 seconds inside his qualification time from the GP here last October.
Nicky Hayden,
106 laps. Best lap 1m 29.780s
Thursday; 97 laps. Best lap: 1m 30.530s
Friday; 115 laps. Best lap 1m 30.430s
Today was the best day of the test for me, I got a good, long run in and recognised a bit more where we need to improve, both myself and the machine. I felt good and we made some positive steps forward and the race time I did was 28 seconds faster than my race time last year so we’re pretty happy with that – but it’s still not enough. We’ll take away what we’ve learnt here and move on to Qatar. I tried both chassis options that we’ve got and we learned a lot about the differences but overall I just felt more consistent today and some of that’s down to me getting into a rut yesterday. We’re still a new team but the atmosphere’s good and we’re gelling really well.’
Max Biaggi,
120 laps. Best lap: 1m 29.880s
Thursday; 96 laps. Best lap: 1m 30.652s
Friday; 93 laps. Best lap: 1m 29.970s
‘I am tired today after so many laps but I wanted to give Michelin the information they needed from the tyres they asked me to test – but I was praying for the red light at the end of the pitlane to end the day’s testing! At times today it was a little difficult as there were some spots of rain which did little for your confidence, especially in the fast sweep into turn one. Overall we have had a good test and confirmed our feeling and direction with the machine set-up following last week’s test in Sepang. We know the areas we need to improve on and we have three tests in March to achieve that.’ Makoto Tanaka, Repsol Honda Team Manager:Overall we’ve had three good days here at Phillip Island. Max probably did too many laps today but it was good that he tried the tyres for Michelin. Nicky had a good day today and discovered some areas of set-up which improved his performance. We know we still have a lot of work to do and will continue to work hard towards improving the machine in the next tests in Qatar and Spain.’
