Casey Stoner was today, as yesterday, the fastest in the Malaysian track of Sepang in this second test day. He achieved it by setting a superb 2 minutes and 171 thousandths time, thus improving the Sepang record time set by Valentino Rossi in 2009.
His Repsol Honda team mate, Dani Pedrosa, was also able to improve the Italian’s time and finished 58 hundredths behind Stoner, after leading nearly all the testing session. Andrea Dovizioso, with a best time of 2 minutes and 531 thousandths was the third fastest rider of the day, completing a very positive session for the Repsol Honda Team.
The warmer temperatures in the morning -10:30 local time-, allowed the riders to take full advantage of the bikes’ potential in the first laps of the day. Dani Pedrosa took the lead of the overall classification in this second day of tests in only lap four of the 41 he completed. His team mate Casey Stoner was second also in the fourth lap, 113 thousandths behind the Spaniard of the Repsol Honda Team. An it only took Italian Andrea Dovizioso another four laps to be third, 302 thousandths behind Pedrosa’s register.
The day passed with the Repsol riders in that positions, as the MotoGP riders focused on taking full advantage of their time on track. When everything seemed settled in the times classification, Casey Stoner set a superb time of 2 minutes and 171 thousandths in his last lap of the day, an impressive time, very close to the 2-minutes barrier.
In this second day, Dani Pedrosa focused on trying the new front fork the Swedish brand Ohlins brought to Malaysia, after the report from the Spaniard at the end of the tests held on this track at the beginning of this month. The Repsol rider also concentrated on set-up and tyre tests with his Honda RC212V.
His team mate Casey Stoner also tried the 2011 front fork and several changes of his bike’s set-up, apart from dedicating the day to try a new rear suspension.
For the Italian rider of the Repsol Honda Team, today’s work was centred on tests of the engine brake, which allowed him to improve some tenths at the entrance of the corners and also improved traction thanks to the fine-tuning of the chassis. Some tests with the tyres and clutch of his bike were also part of Dovizioso’s job in this second day of tests.
Dani Pedrosa 2’00.229 sec, 41 laps, 227 km. >> Audio
“Today we were testing mainly suspension parts, a new front fork in the morning that gives us a more positive feeling on braking, and a rear shock in the afternoon that improves the feeling with the rear tyre, so I’m satisfied with the work we’ve done together with Ohlins. We also tried different settings for the chassis and I’d like to be in the position tomorrow to decide which one we will use for this season. Now, both chassis give me a good feeling and I have to put my head down and think about it because it’s a very important decision. Since coming into MotoGP, this test together with the 2006 winter test on the 990 cc. bike, is the best pre-season. In 2006 I remember we had a very good last test that allowed us to face the first race well prepared and with a lot of confidence; and now it feels very similar. The bike is responding in the areas we need, although the first race is where you see clearly where you win and where you lose. I think Yamaha will be closer than they are now, so we have to keep an eye on them”.
Andrea Dovizioso 2’00.531 sec, 46 laps, 255 km. >> Audio
“I’m repeating myself, but I’m very very happy. It was a surprise to do 2’00.9 in the first test and we’ve been able to do 2’05 today, which is great. Normally I’m not so fast in testing, so to be competitive like this is very good. Today, the track conditions were better, as usual in the second day of testing, but another good point is that we have improved our lap times from the first test, and our rivals haven’t so much. In terms of tested items, today we did nothing in particular, just tried a few things that you don’t have time to test during the season, and we were consistent all day. The plan for tomorrow is to do a simulation, and it will be a good training to start the season in Qatar with more information about how the tyres and the bike work in race distance”.
Casey Stoner 2’00.171 sec, 42 laps, 233 km. >> Audio
“We tested a lot of different things including the 2011 fork and new shocks and we found quite a lot of chattering with them. We spent 90% of the day on one bike trying different configurations, changing the geometry to get the new fork working with the bike but didn’t find anything that felt really good, but these things are necessary to do before the start of the season. We’re slowly starting to lean more towards the standard frame but tomorrow will give us more confirmation on this. We found the new forks to be quite amazing in the braking points, in hard breaking I didn’t need to use half as much pressure and I was able to stop for the corner much quicker, but found a lot more chattering in the last part of the corner. We managed to reduce this but we just seemed to lack the extra feeling that the alternative forks were giving”.
