The activity resumed today at the Malaysian track of Sepang, where the MotoGP riders continued with their preseason tests. While the Moto2 and 125cc teams finish off the last sessions in Europe -mainly in Barcelona, Valencia, Estoril and Jerez-, the MotoGP teams return to the track where, two weeks ago, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso offered a great performance. Today, the Repsol Honda Team kept setting the pace with Stoner in front.
The Australian rider of the Repsol Honda Team, Casey Stoner, was the only rider able to set a time below the 2minutes 1 second, and he did so in lap 48 of the 53 he completed in the Malaysian track. The second fastest time was for Dani Pedrosa –3 tenths behind his team mate- which is a new sign of the great potential of the Repsol Honda Team and the Honda RC212V this season. The Spaniard set his best time in lap 43 of a total of 46.
Third position went to the current MotoGP World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo, followed by American Colin Edwards, riding the same bike brand. 7 tenths behind Stoner was Dovizioso –fifth-, who was satisfied with his bike’s behaviour and with what he tried during this test session. The Italian set his fastest time in lap 47 of the 54 he completed in total.
The three riders focused on improving the stability of the bike under braking. Stoner started the day with the set-up of the last time he rode in Sepang and made comparisons between the two available chassis. Dani Pedrosa tried different set-ups of the chassis and electronics. Meanwhile, Andrea Dovizioso spent the day trying some changes in the engine brake of the Honda, electronics improvements and a modified clutch. The Italian also completed an intense test of the tyres available.
The MotoGP riders tests in Sepang will continue tomorrow and Thursday will be the last day at the Malaysian track.
Dani Pedrosa 2’01.360 sec, 46 laps, 255km.
“We made the most of the test today which is a good job because it looks like tomorrow we will get some rain. In the morning, we focused on some different electronic mappings to improve the entering and exit of the corners and in the afternoon we did some set-up modifications on the chassis to improve the stability on braking. The track temperature was high at the middle of the day and the track was quite slippery but we did a good test and tomorrow we will work on smaller details. Also, physically my shoulder felt better on the bike than in the first test. I had two more weeks and I’ve become stronger from training, so my condition is getting better”.
Andrea Dovizioso 2’01.747 sec, 54 laps, 300 km. >> Audio
“I’m really happy about how we have started this second test. Honda engineers have made a very good job on the engine brake with the electronic system to improve the feeling on the rear and these are really good because I have to say that it was our main problem last year and we couldn’t make such a big step forward as we did today. We have decreased the chattering compared to the first test and the stability on the rear, so I’m very satisfied. We were able to be fast from the beginning and, even we were not looking for a lap time today, we tried 3 different tyre compounds and we had a good pace with all of them”.
Casey Stoner 2’00.987 sec, 53 laps, 294 km. >> Audio
“We had a really good day today, from the beginning I felt more comfortable with the bike again, like I understood the bike a little better. We managed to work on set-up but we are still doing a chassis comparison, finding strong points and weak points on both. It’s difficult to choose one or the other, whatever set-up we throw at them we seem to be able to run pretty similar lap times. We’re very happy with the progress we made today and everything and everybody seems to be working well”.
