More, from a press release issued by JiR Team Scot Honda: A tough tyre-testing day for Yuki Takahasi at the night tests of Qatar The second day has begun for the JiR Team Scot squad as they research tyre solutions and suspension settings ahead of the first round of the 250cc GP championship here in a week’s time. Today Yuki didn’t want to push too hard, as he wanted to work with both Dunlop and Showa technicians to improve the setting and ‘feel’ of the Honda RS250RW. At the end of the day the result is that JiR Team Scot are very satisfied with the result and tomorrow they hope to verify their whole technical package during the final day’s testing. Gianni Berti Technical Coordinator, JiR Team Scot “Yesterday the performance of Yuki was very good and he showed his true colours, which is why today we concentrated on our tyre and suspension work without looking too much at the lap time but instead we were checking different solutions for the race. One of the priorities was the front tyre, which Yuki decided to work on, along with the final tuning of the suspension and later of the gearbox settings. A lot of work was done today in the garage and Yuki did a number of medium runs to fine-tune his race configuration. Tomorrow we will look at the final choices we have made after two very intense days of work.” Yuki Takahashi Rider, JiR Team Scot 250GP HONDA RS250RW Best time: 16th – 2’01″956 “I didn’t want to push too hard today! Today we had a schedule to test front tyres and test these very thoroughly so that was the job! I’m very satisfied as I found a good solution we also discovered a setting for the front fork to improve the bike’s handling. I did some 10 lap runs on used tyres to verity our consistency. Tomorrow is the final day and we’ll bring all things together in a bid to be ready for the race.” Yutaka Hirano Crew chief, JiR Team Scot 250GP “Today our schedule was very delicate and was spent finding that elusive front tyre that we always want and then the fork and gearbox settings. We are looking to put Yuki in the condition to have a good pace for the race, but tomorrow we need to verify the small details. We’re trying to find a good technical balance and at the end of the day we were also working on carburettor settings as the weather conditions today were different to those of yesterday and things could well change before the race!” Test Doha 250GP Day 2 1) Mattia Pasini Aprilia 1’59″761 2) Alvaro Bautista Aprilia 2’00″516 3) Alex Debon Aprilia 2’00″550 4) Hector Barbera Aprilia 2’00″719 5) Mika Kallio KTM 2’00″878 16) Yuki Takahashi Honda 2’01″956 From a press release issued by Repsol Media Service: JULIÁN SIMÓN AND ESTEVE RABAT CONTINUE WITH PREPARATIONS FOR THE QATAR GRAN PRIX The Repsol KTM riders polish off the details for the first test of the season. Tomorrow Monday will be the last day of training sessions of the 2008 season The 2008 pre-season reaches its end, and today the second-last of the winter training sessions were held on the Losail Circuit, in Qatar. Tomorrow Monday will be last day of training for the 125cc and 250cc riders, and this same week, on Monday 7th, the Qatar Gran Prix will officially kick off, with the first test of the 2008 World Motorcycling Championship. The two Repsol KTM Team riders, Esteve Rabat and Julián Simón, have contInued testing on their new bikes. They have concentrated mainly on the setup of the suspension, the gearbox and various adjustments to the engine. After riding for the first time yesterday under the 1000 floodlights lighting the Qatari track, tonight the Repsol riders said that they felt much more comfortable under these new conditions, though for the 250cc riders the difficulty is greater, as next weekend they will ride well into the night, with the resulting increased humidity that reduces grip on the tarmac. Hiroshi Aoyama and Mikka Kallio, both riders who will receive technical support from Repsol with their KTM 250cc bikes during the 2008 season, also continue to work on the KTM 250 FRR with which they will attempt to snatch the quarter-litre title, after giving a fine performance at the end of last season. Quotes 250cc Julián Simón >> “These training sessions are turning out to be quite tough. We’re still testing things, but we’re a bit short of good tyres for these training sessions because have a limited amount for the race and we cannot use them now. tomorrow the idea is to use a good tyre to see if the work we’ve done on the bike is correct. Because right now it’s a bit complicated setting up the bike with tyres we won’t use for the race. We have to keep insisting; the mechanics are working very hard, they’re helping me a good deal, and though for the moment my times are not that good, we are hopeful that tomorrow we can improve some more. We’re getting used to riding at night and to the lighting on the track.” 125cc Esteve Rabat >> “It’s been a tough day from the start and it took us a while to pick up the pace. I can’t say too many positive things, because we still have a lot to do. We have had many problems and right now I’m working on finding the right line on the curves, We have to improve the performance of the suspension and the gear ratio; we probably need shorter gears to leave the curves with more strength. In the front of the bike we have some rebounds in the suspension that we have to get rid of, and also in the rear, though to a lesser degree. Though fortunately its nothing that can’t be solved, so tomorrow we’ll try to find solutions.”