Rabat smashes the outright lap record at Valencia
Valencia, Spain – 18 November 2014: Tito Rabat was again the fastest rider on the final day of testing at Valencia, with the reigning Moto2 World Champion breaking the outright lap record with a time of 1’34.844.
The Team Estrella Galicia Marc VDS rider declared himself satisfied with the progress he and his crew made with the 2015 Kalex Moto2 machine, which differs significantly from the 2014 version that took Rabat to the World Championship win this season.
Alex Marquez today continued his adaptation to the Kalex Moto2 bike he’ll campaign for Team Estrella Galicia Marc VDS in 2015. The reigning Moto3 World Champion again made a significant step forward, to finish just one second off the time of his more experienced teammate, despite two minor crashes.
Rabat and Marquez now have a few days break from riding, before heading to Almeria for the final test of the 2014 season next week.
Tito Rabat // 1st // 1’34.844
“We’ve had two really productive days here at Valencia and my feeling with the 2015 Kalex is really good. We have tested a lot of things again today, but I’ve also had to adapt slightly my riding style to get more from the bike, and that’s worked well here too. My pace was good, my rhythm was good and my lap time was good, so I’m happy. Now we head to Almeria, where we will continue working to find further imrpovements.”
Alex Marquez // 14th // 1’35.964
“Today we’ve again done some good work, continuing to adapt to the Moto2 bike step by step, which was our goal. The riding style required for Moto2 is very different to that in Moto3. With the small bike you carry a lot of corner speed, but with the Moto2 bike you need to be more aggressive on the brakes, get the bike stopped and then pick it up on the gas. We’re going in the right direction, as can be seen from the fact we’re now only a second from Tito, but the two crashes knocked my confidence a little and building it back up lost us some time. Now we need to continue in the same direction in Almeria, where I hope we can close the gap to Tito even further.”
Michael Bartholemy // Team Principal
“Tito has wasted no time adapting to the 2015 Kalex; basically he just jumped on it and was fast straight away, as we pretty much expected him to be. He was under the outright lap record today despite the track temperature being quite cool, so already we can see that the bike has improved and Tito has figured out how to get the best from the improvements. I’m sure he’ll be looking to break his own lap record at Almeria next week too! Alex’s approach to adapting his riding style to our Moto2 bike has been steady and methodical, which is exactly the right way to do it. He has worked with his crew to understand the bike better and we’ve seen him improve his lap time with every exit, so he’s heading in exactly the right direction. As he gets more kilometres under him his confidence will increase and with confidence comes pace.”