Three weeks after the World Championship finished the Repsol Honda Team was back to work preparing the motorbike that will be used next season by Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa in their fight for the MotoGP title.
If the Repsol riders had their first contact with the bike some time ago and in Sepang Nicky Hayden continued to get used to the Honda RC212V 2008, this time the Circuito de Jerez was the setting for what will be the final session this year. Last week the rain at this very circuit conditioned the 125cc and 250cc teams but today the day broke with the skies a clear blue, and although it was cold first thing, when the sun had heated the asphalt enough the riders got out on the track in Andalusia and had a positive day’s training.
Dani Pedrosa did 60 laps and set a best time of 1’40.355 seconds, second behind Casey Stoner who stopped the clock at 1’40.221. The Repsol rider was able to check out the improvements that HRC had been able to make over the last few weeks since the riders made their conclusions in Valencia, especially with regard to the electronic engine brake. What is more, Pedrosa was able to try some variations on the chassis set up; however the Repsol Honda Team rider found that in some aspects it will have to be improved even more.
Referring to his teammate Nicky Hayden, the day was also positive. After doing 63 laps the Repsol rider set the fifth best time, stopping the clock at 1’40.923 seconds. The American made some more changes and did more tests to try an improve the all-round performance. Like Pedrosa he rode the whole day on his new machine; after this first day’s training Hayden was very pleased at the end of the day.
Work at the Circuito de Jerez will continue tomorrow and Thursday, two important days to make some conclusions that will let HRC make some improvements during the months that training is not allowed. So the riders aim to take advantage of the two days that are left to work on tyre development.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’40.355 secs, 60 laps, 266 Km.
“We’ve been testing with the new bike exclusively today and we were looking to see if the issues we had at the first test in Valencia have been solved. The electronic engine settings which control the power delivery and the engine braking have been improved which makes the machine more rideable and quicker too. The feeling from the chassis is quite good but I have to continue working on the settings to suit me. In Valencia the bike wasn’t ready to complete a lot of laps but today we have been able to do many more. There has been progress in some areas and in other areas we still have some work to do. We’ve tried some changes with the chassis today and we’ll look for further improvements tomorrow. So far we haven’t tested any new tyres and this is an important area to improve lap times so I’m confident we can make further progress throughout this test”.
Nicky Hayden, 1’40.923 secs, 63 laps, 279 Km.
“Overall it was a pretty positive day. We tried some modifications to the engine to get it running better than it did at the previous two tests and now it seems to be more responsive and to be running a little better – though it’s still not quite there. We also changed a few things on the chassis, for instance the offset, which took a while and reduced our track time somewhat, but this was important to try to understand more about the machine. This is the first time I’ve been able to come into the garage, focus on the 2008 machine and spend the whole day on it so that was beneficial. It wasn’t a perfect start to the test – that’s pretty rare – but we definitely learned some useful things and I’m encouraged by the start we’ve made here today. Let’s see what happens over the next few days and aim to make some more improvements”.
