Honda pair leave Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia happy with work carried out. Next Tuesday they test again, at Jerez.
After putting more than 1,488 kilometres under their belts, the Moto3 riders concluded the first official test of the 2014 preseason on Thursday. Alex Rins and Alex Marquez made the most of the three days of testing to continue the development of the new Honda NSF250RW. The riders dedicated their time to adapting to their new machines alongside their respective crews, and collected valuable information for further development.
On Thursday the high winds returned and complicated the work on track, preventing riders from improving their times from the previous day. Alex Rins ended the day with a best time of 1:40.711, whilst Alex Marquez stopped the clock with a lap of 1:41.480. Marquez did not ride during the afternoon due to accumulated fatigue in his right shoulder.
After the good feeling experienced at this test, Rins and Marquez move on to Jerez, where they have three days on track in their next testing appointment. They will use the trio of days to continue adapting to their new bikes and fine-tuning their setups.
Alex Rins
1:40.711, 80 laps, 320 km.
“I’m pretty happy with how we worked with the team in terms of the chassis and suspension, and although the times are still not what we were after, we are feeling good. The weather conditions were not the best today, it was very windy, but we were able to maintain a good pace and collect a lot of data to develop the bike.”
Álex Márquez
1:41.480, 47 laps, 188 km.
“I am pleased these three days of testing. Today I stopped testing early, because my right shoulder is still not 100% recovered and I prefer not to force it, in order to go to Jerez in better shape. Overall we are happy with the work done these three days, although the difficult conditions of strong winds prevented us from making as much progress as we would have liked. We need to keep working on the development of the new bike and the parts provided for us by the HRC technicians.”
