Thursday marked the end of the third and final day of the second official MotoGP preseason test at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia.  The first two days were hampered by rain with the forecast for day three not looking much better.  Thankfully, all that came out of it were a few raindrops and the teams could work without interruption all day long.

Several riders had crashed in various parts of the circuit, thankfully with no injuries.  Among them Alvaro Bautista, Ben Spies, Jorge Lorenzo and Nicky Hayden.

The hot topic brewing for this season once again seem to be the Bridgstone spec tires.  You’d never know it by looking at the time sheets but Honda continues to experience lots of chatter.  They’ve been able to reduce it some by going with a revised chassis from the last test but it still persists.  Yamaha’s big concern is tire management based on race simulations they ran.  Ducati’s Valentino Rossi flat out said that he’s unhappy with their situation.  They still appear to be having issues, some of which now revolve around rear wheel traction.  The Ducati has always made gobs of power and with the new 1000cc engines, it’s an even bigger challenge to tame the beast.  Teammate Nicky Hayden wasn’t as pessimistic, though he was showing disappointment in his position.  His shoulder is feeling better and though it isn’t quite 100%, he has another 3 weeks of rehab and therapy before going to Jerez for the final pre-season test.

NGM Forward Racing’s Colin Edwards feels like they’re headed in the right direction.  They’ve reduced chatter and have improved overall, looking at the time sheets will confirm that.  Fellow CRT participants Ivan Silva and Yonny Hernandez also seem to have improved quite a bit since the previous test.  While the lap times are still quite a bit back from leader Casey Stoner, they are now within the 107% required for race qualification per the MotoGP rule book.  One interesting thing to note about the Kawasaki powered Avintia Team bikes is that they sound much closer to a superbike while the BMW powerplant sounds much closer to what we’re used to from a MotoGP bike.

We’ll keep adding the rider quotes as they trickle in…

(more…)

Posted in: Racing

Day two of testing for the entire HRC squad ground to a halt on Wednesday due to a blown engine in Dani Pedrosa’s bike.  Let me say that again, all of HRC’s testing was put on hold due to a blown engine in Pedrosa’s bike.  It’s not something you get to read very often at all, I figured it’s worth repeating.  Honda engineers summoned the engine for immediate return and analysis to Japan and by noon today gave the go ahead for the other riders to resume testing but heavy rains have already set in by that time.  This highlights some of the friction between teams vs factories.  Instead of mechanics tearing into the engine immediately after coming into the pits, they had to enroll the help of some carrier pigeons to send the engine back to the lab for analysis.  Not a very cost saving measure.  Surely cheaper than having to do it with multiple engines, hence the halt to their testing until they knew what really happened.

Yamaha for the first time was able to run their new bike in the rain with which both Spies and Lorenzo were pleased.  They each tested different chassis setups as well as electronics settings to further their test program.

Ducati’s day was also shortened some due to the rain.  Nicky sat out during the rain to mitigate the risk of falling and further damaging his shoulder.  Valentino also focused the majority of his testing for the first half of the day with rain in the forecast, testing new wheelie and traction control settings among other things.  Overall response from both riders signaled improvements with each setting they’ve tried.

Karel Abraham cut his testing short and flew home to the Czech Republic due to a damaged shoulder from Jerez.  There was some oil in one of the turns during CRT testing that he fell victim to.  His Ducati ended up going up in flames as a result as well.

All riders hope to connect the dots in tomorrow’s third and final day of testing and walk away with a solid direction for their program.  I know I’m ready to get this season under way, are you? (more…)

Posted in: Racing

Most of us are still waiting for the snow to melt or at the very least for temperatures to rise a bit before throwing a leg over our motorcycles.  Meanwhile, the factory backed participants of the MotoGP grid are in Sepang for their second pre-season test of the new 2012 bikes along with Colin Edwards and his BMW powered CRT outfit.

There have been lots and lots of events since the previous test just a few weeks ago.  Nicky Hayden underwent shoulder surgery.  Valentino Rossi had the rod removed from his leg.  Casey and Adriana Stoner celebrated the arrival of their first child.  Dani Pedrosa got a newly upgraded “smile module”, hopefully.  Yamaha came back with a different engine.  Colin Edwards got a new frame from Suter to wrap the BMW S1000RR plant with as well as a new seat.  Other CRT efforts had testing in Valencia and Jerez to keep their costs lower.  And the list could go on and on.  All this hard work and preparation isn’t helping the snow melt faster nor the temperatures rise faster but it does give us something to sink our teeth into as we await April 8th – the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar.

Without further ado, here are the times and rider statements from the first day of this latest test:

(more…)

Posted in: Racing