After celebrating the all-Honda podium yesterday at Brno, the Repsol Honda Team returned back on track this morning for a one day test dedicated to the development of the Honda prototype for the 2012 MotoGP Championship.
It was a positive day of testing with both riders giving valuable feedback, which will allow the HRC engineers to continue the development of the new machine. As scheduled, the test began at 09h00 under dry conditions and finished at 18h00 with one hour lunch break.
Fortunately, the rain that was expected did not arrive until the final 30 minutes of the day, when the Repsol Honda Team had already finished their programme. Czech Republic GP winner Casey Stoner, who already tested the RC213V in the Jerez test, was the fastest rider on track with a lap time of 1’56.168. Completing a total of 57 laps, he and his team took some important steps forward in the development of the
2012 machine.
Dani Pedrosa made his debut on the new machine as he missed the first test session held at Jerez on May 17th and 18th due to injury. Dani made the most of the dry track to study the new bike and give important feedback to the HRC engineers. In total he completed 37 laps with a top time of 1’57.264, the fourth fastest of the day.
HRC engineers will now take time to evaluate this data from both riders and decide how to proceed with the development of the new machine.
Investigators of the Repsol Technology Centre keep a close collaboration with the Honda engineers in the development of the new 1000cc bike that will compete in the MotoGP World Championship from 2012. Coordinated with their Japanese counterparts, the Repsol experts are developing one fuel and one lubricant specific for the new bike that Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner tested today in Brno.
Dani Pedrosa
1:57.264, 37 laps, 200 km.
“First of all, I’m very happy to have tested the 1000cc because rain was expected but it didn’t arrive until the end of the day, so we were lucky with that. My first impression in the morning was that the feelings were quite similar to those I had when I first came into MotoGP, you can feel the difference in torque and power. Perhaps I was still riding it with a 800cc style and I need a little more understanding again and try to ride it differently, but the bike seems to work quite well. We will make many modifications, so the final version will be very different to today’s bike, but this is normal and the first impression is quite good. Compared to the 990cc I rode in 2006 it’s very similar on the power side, but a little lighter in weight and behaviour. I tried one run with the prototype Casey tested in Jerez and also the other one with some modifications and it was a bit better. With a new bike, electronics, engine, chassis, everything is not the best, but from my experience in the past with new bikes, the starting point is not so bad. We have to be very careful with the chassis because perhaps the tyres next year are a little different in construction which will affect the chassis”.
Casey Stoner
1:56.168, 57 laps, 308 km.
“Today was another good shakedown but we still have some work to do, we found a few positive things and confirmed certain directions to take and move forward. We had a few small problems with chatter but it’s something that shouldn’t be too difficult to sort out through engine braking and engine management systems, which are areas we can definitely improve in, along with the chassis. The engine for me is fantastic, to ride the 1000 with more grunt and more power it’s a lot of fun, it has incredible acceleration, most of the time too much! We tested a couple of the new tyres and had some issues, the traction didn’t feel that great and they seemed to create a lot more chatter so we went back to the standard tyres and the chatter seemingly disappeared. From the data we have from the first test and this test, we can go away and come back with the next step and take it from there”.
