Ducati Team conclude two days of testing at Misano
Two days of private testing organized by the Ducati Team at the Misano World Circuit concluded today. In truly sweltering conditions (track 61°C/air 36°C), the two Ducati factory riders were mainly able to devote themselves to a back-to-back comparison of a variety of different set-up solutions.
Dovizioso stayed out on track until the end of the afternoon session, notching up a total of 132 laps in two days, while Iannone’s day was brought to an end at lunchtime due to a flaring up again of the pain in his left shoulder, which he injured during pre-race testing at Mugello.
Ducati Test Team rider Michele Pirro was also present at Misano, and he continued his regular development work, focussing mainly on electronics.
Last Sunday’s race at the Sachsenring and this test conclude the first part of the 2015 season and the Ducati Team will next be back on track from 7 to 9 August at Indianapolis for the second race this year on US soil.
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – best time 1’32.5 (total 132 laps)
“These two days of testing at Misano have been really useful, because we were able to do the set-up testing work that we were interested in. During race weekends, we never have the right amount of time to devote ourselves to this. We worked on fine-tuning, both the electronics and the set-up, and our pace is not bad at all: my quickest lap I did this morning with a used tyre, but in the afternoon it was really very hot and we didn’t try to improve our times, and even avoided using the soft tyres.”
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – best time 1’32.7 (total 101 laps)
“In one and a half days of testing, we only used a total of three tyres, all hard compound, and even this morning I never used soft tyres. Despite this we improved our pace over yesterday by more than half a second. This is important for us and I am pleased with how we went. I’m just disappointed I had to finish the test early, but unfortunately from this morning onwards my shoulder was hurting really bad and I was unable to lap quickly or push hard. Today however I had some good sensations on the bike, we did a good job and picked up a lot of important information for the future.”
More, from a press release issued by Repsol Honda:
Repsol Honda resume testing in sweltering Italy
Today Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa continued their mid-season testing under incredibly hot conditions at the Misano circuit, Italy.
Both riders spend more time on the current 2015 RC213V Honda, to improve their base setup and also tested the new 2016 prototype machine, reporting positively. Marc completed a total of 86 laps with a best time of 1’32.00. Dani did 71 laps with his best time of 1’32.66.
Tomorrow is the final day of testing and both riders will focus on the 2016 tyre manufacturer.
Marc Marquez
1’32.00 [86 LAPS]
“I’m happy with these past two days, we have done a great job on the setup and now I feel more comfortable. Especially this morning when the temperature was a little bit lower we were able to find something that has improved my feeling and now we will have to see if this will work also in the coming circuits. I also tried the 2016 prototype finding something good, but we will test it again tomorrow with next year’s tyres to give the HRC engineers more data to work with. In the afternoon the track temperature was really too hot, but I am happy with the pace I was able to keep even in these circumstances. A big thanks to HRC and my team for the great job done! Tomorrow one more tough day and then we will deserve some days off!”
Dani Pedrosa
1’32.66 [71 LAPS]
“It’s been two hard but productive days of testing. We are happy as we have been able to work a lot on the current bike to find a setup that can be a good base for the coming GPs. It has been a very hard job as the temperature was really hot but I am happy. I also did a couple of exits with the prototype of the 2016 bike. It was important to give to the engineers some feedback about the direction we are heading. Tomorrow we will test it again with 2016 tyres as this bike will have to work on them!”
More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki Press Office:
POSITIVE TEST FOR TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR IN MISANO
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR has completed two days of intense testing at Misano in Italy today with positive results and crucial data aquired in the intense heat that reached 56°C on track.
Aleix Espargarò and Maverick Viñales continued the development of their Suzuki GSX-RRs and their engineers had the chance to verify all the information collected to date, and along with the progress made so far, it is going in the right direction, they believe.
At the same time both Spaniards tried new settngs and set-ups that will be put into action at future races this season; in particular Misano in September. The chassis set-up and electronics are the two main areas on which the team focused; trying several variations aimed at providing better traction and a better power delivery.
The other important job done by Espargarò and Viñales was to prepare for the race here in Misano later this year: The circuit has been laid with a new surface in recent months and the grip-level is notably increased; therefore it was important to take new points of reference for future base set-ups of their GSX-RRs.
Satoru Terada – Project Leader:
“This test has been very important to us, it allowed us to try all the things that we usually cannot try in the race weekend and it gave us some very important information. We focused mainly on finding a better way of approaching the chassis set-up, to find better traction. Both the riders improved their feelings with the bike and this is positive. To have more information is crucial for us and we also managed to finalise more options that we can exploit to find the base set-up in every race from here on. We also tried some improvements in electronics to improve the feeling with the power delivery and it gave positive results. We now have clearer ideas on where our main potential is and which are the areas that we can exploit most. We will try to take benefit from this for the second half of the season.”
Davide Brivio – Team Manager:
“One of the positives of this test is that both riders can now go on vacation with a positive mood and feeling: They both worked very hard in this heat and they both found a new feeling with their machines. It was important for us to take a break and analyse exactly where we are at the half-way point in the season, since we lacked some data that we needed time to dedicate away from a racing weekend to better understand where we are and where we can go. To have further options for the overall set-up and electronics is crucial for the development and on this matter we made a huge step forward.”
Maverick Viñales:
Day 1 – Laps; 82; best: 1’33.2
Day 2 – Laps; 84; best: 1’32.7
“I have the feeling that this test has been very useful for us, we understand better where we can improve and we have worked to prepare for the forthcoming races. I did many laps in a sort of race configuration with a full tank and dedicated set-up, and I felt better –and-better on every run. At the beginning I had a bad feeling with traction on the exit but also had trouble with being fast on the entrance into slow corners. We applied many improvements to the chassis and they gave positive results. Now we have many options that we already know can be useful or be adapted to every single circuit. For the feeling that I have now I wish Indy was next week, because with these improvements I feel very comfortable on my machine, but we also need some time to take a rest and – most importantly – to review all the data and consolidate our information.”
Aleix Espargarò:
Day 1 – Laps; 69; best: 1’33.2
Day 2 – Laps; 52; best: 1’32.8
“The extremely hot weather conditions made this testing very hard, but I’m very happy for what we achieved. After Sachsenring it was important to get back some feeling with the front, especially in slow corners, and we could finally test several set-up configurations that at the end gave me very positive feelings. We have also improved with the electronics and worked in race configuration, verifying the consistency of performance with hard tyres, even though we didn’t make any long runs or race simulations. The machine is reacting very well, the feeling I have is positive and the most important thing is that we could find different ways to approach the future races and set-up situations. This is important for a new team as we are. Now we switch off the mind for a while and enjoy a little break, but to be honest I’m looking forward to starting racing again because I feel the need to recover from the bad performance in Sachsenring.”