MotoGP test Losail, Qatar. Final day of three-day test, February 15, 20072007-02-15 12:45Dani Pedrosa and the RC212V set fastest lap time at Qatar MotoGP test The final day of the last pre-season MotoGP test at the Losail circuit, Qatar was a crucial day for many of the teams present. With just 21 days to go before the opening race of the 18-round world championship series, hosted by the same Losail circuit, Honda teams, technicians and riders worked hard to complete the development programme set out by HRC. The majority of teams head back to Europe to prepare for the final pre-season, at Jerez, Spain on February 23-25 with sufficient technical data to establish good base lines for overall machine set up. Dani Pedrosa was particularly satisfied with his three-days in Qatar. The diminutive Spaniard made few set up changes to his four-cylinder 800cc RC212V for today spending most of his time testing Michelin tyres. Pedrosa ran fast consistent times on race tyres before conducting a 22-lap race simulation during which he ran one lap at 1m 56.835s, 0.5 seconds inside the existing lap record set on a 990cc machine. The precocious 21-year old then fitted a set of qualifying tyres to his RCV and set fastest time for the three-day test with a scintillating time of 1m 55.471s! For MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden it was a bounce-back day. The Repsol Honda factory rider suffered two crashes yesterday and needed to run laps and get comfortable on his RCV instead of chasing lap times. He spent his day working towards getting a better feeling from the front end with encouraging results to carry into the final pre-season test at Jerez, Spain on February 23-25. He left Qatar in positive mood confident HRC will provide the solutions necessary to improve the Champions prospects of opening his title defence with a victory. Gresini Honda rider Marco Melandri ended the three days of testing with his RCV in very buoyant mood. The former 250cc world champion has worked methodically all winter and he has nothing but praise for his technical crew who have established a solid base line with chassis and suspension for the Honda. That has allowed Melandri the freedom to ride confidently and at a consistent fast pace on the Bridgestone tyres he will race on for the first time in his career. Melandri's team-mate, Toni Elias continues to struggle as he adapts to the Bridgestone tyres Gresini Honda will race with in 2007. Despite not finding the tyres to suit his style the young Spaniard improved drastically today slashing 1.7 seconds off his best time of yesterday. Elias is not despondent with the situation he looks to the hard working combination of Bridgestone and the Gresini technicians to resolve his problems in time for the Jerez test next week. Japanese star Shinya Nakano has adapted well to the RC212V and grows in confidence each time he rides the bike. He is beginning to understand the characteristics of the Honda and has resolved the front end problems he experienced at previous test. LCR Honda rider Carlos Checa is satisfied with the work they have done and the results achieved. The team have found a good direction to work in and at Jerez will fine tune the RCV ready to race in three-weeks. Team Roberts took a step forward on the final day at Qatar. Team rider Kenny Roberts Jnr had been hampered by front end problems that caused major tyre wear. Working on weight transfer and suspension modifications the team have almost eradicated the problem and go into the Jerez test confident they will complete their pre-season testing schedule, Honda rider quotes and lap times. Nicky Hayden, Repsol Honda: 1m 57.269s - 97 laps. "After yesterday I just needed to come in and do some laps to try to get the feeling back, so today I got comfortable and didn't get too carried away chasing lap times. I've been trying to get some more feeling from the front - that's what we're working towards. I'd have liked to have gone a bit faster today but we're still positive and we'll go back to work in Jerez and make some improvements. Things started out so good on the first morning here - since then it's been a tough couple of days. Sometimes this is a hard a game and you've got to adjust to it - I go away from here healthy and hopefully we'll go to the next test and get some things sorted out with me and the bike. I want to thank my team because yesterday was pretty hard on those guys and they were really cool about it." Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda - 1m 55.471s - 87 laps "On the final day we didn't test too much on the bike. We took the best settings from yesterday and the day before and put in a good number of laps to get a better feeling for how the tyres will behave during the race. I also did a race simulation and put on qualifying tyres at the end of the day. Definitely this was as a test for myself more than for the bike and that's good. It was really important to get a good feeling here because the first race of the season will be held here and now I hope that when we come back the conditions are similar and we can take advantage of this test. But it wasn't only us that had a good test: also Yamaha and Suzuki are fast, Ducati as well. We will continue to see how the tyres work and that's why we cannot relax. We wanted to see the performance of the bike at the end of the race and we've got some information about this which is important. Now we have to keep improving". Marco Melandri, Gresini Honda: 1m.56.980s - 62 laps."The team is doing a great job. I like the bike, I have a good feeling when I'm riding. I feel very comfortable with chassis and suspensions. Now we have to work on the engine to make a further step forward. We continued tyres testing with Bridgestone and we found some interesting solutions that can be good in preparation for the race. In the afternoon I tried also a qualifying tyre to gather some data and prepare for the season. I couldn't use the qualifying tyre at his best, while my race pace was quite good. I trust a lot our partners so I'm confident". Toni Elias, Gresini Honda: 1m.57.246s - 71 laps. "We are struggling a bit because at this moment we cannot find a good compromise in the package Honda - Bridgestone, we still haven't found the tyre that it's good for my riding style and my characteristics. I'm confident because we are working hard with the Bridgestone technicians. We will get probably some new stuff to test in Jerez for the next IRTA test session, this would be very important for us ". Shinya Nakano, Konica Minolta Honda: 1m 56.980s - 73 laps. "During these three days on the Losail track, I did the best I could and rode hard. I'm happy about the level of feeling I'm now getting from the front tyre, as this was our target during this test and we've achieved that. Every test I make with the new bike, I'm able to make a further step forward and I hope to move ahead again next week during the IRTA test. This is vital if I'm to be in the best shape for the first race of the season here in Qatar in 2007." Carlos Checa, LCR Honda: 1m 57.497s. - 83 laps. "I know that today's result is not so positive compared to Pedrosa's best lap time but I feel pretty satisfied about these days' work. Honestly we still have to improve on qualifying tyres but the pace we got on this machine makes me very confident for the beginning of the season. Since the first test in Sepang last November we have been working very hard to find the right direction to go and I can easily say the things are going in the right way. Today I rode also a race simulation and the feeling with the bike is getting better day after day. Now we move to Jerez for the last test session before the season's kick off and we will use those days to fix up the last things". Kenny Roberts Jnr, KR212V: 1m 57.408s "There was quite a lot of wind and we struggled at times with the work we were trying to do on the bike. We had been tearing up a lot of front tyre in the corners so we worked on weight transfer and the suspension and it was a lot better today. We tested some tyres for Michelin and we ended the day running a race simulation on the race tyres we got the most out of on Tuesdays good laps. The time wasn't too bad lap times could have been a couple of tenths faster but the sun was going down and it was difficult to se where the edge of the track was. One thing for sure, we are closer to the front at this stage last year. We'll be OK in Jerez." MotoGP Official Test: Qatar. Day 3 Official Times 1. Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda - 1m 55.471s 2. John Hopkins, Suzuki - 1m 55.825s 3. Valentino Rossi, Yamaha - 1m 55.954s 4. Alex Hofmann, Pramac d'Antin - 1m 56.315s 5. Colin Edwards, Yamaha - 1m 56.371s. 6. Randy de Puniet, Kawasaki - 1m 56.753s. 7. Loris Capirossi, Ducati - 1m 56.807s. 8. Casey Stoner, Ducati - 1m 56.834s. 9. Alex Barros, Pramac d'Antin - 1m 56.950s. 10. Marco Melandri, Honda Gresini - 1m 56.980s. 11. Shinya Nakano, Konica Minolta Honda - 1m 56.980s. 12. Makoto Tamada, Dunlop Yamaha Tech3 - 1m 57.232s. 13. Toni Elias, Honda Gresini - 1m 57.246s. 14. Nicky Hayden, Repsol Honda - 1m 57.269s. 15. Chris Vermeulen, Suzuki - 1m 57.365s. 16. Kenny Roberts, Team Roberts - 1m 57.408s. 17. Carlos Checa, Honda LCR - 1m 57.497s. 18. Sylvain Guintoli, Dunlop Yamaha Tech3 - 1m 58.379s. 19. Shinichi Ito, Ducati TTT - 1'58.974 20. Andrew Pitt, Ilmor GP - 2'00.455 21. Olivier Jacque, Kawasaki Racing - 2'02.081 22. Jeremy McWilliams, Ilmor GP - 2'02.612 Source: Honda Pro Image Click here to visit our forums to discuss this story |
Headlines
Tweets by bikeland_org |