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Rain interrupts testing in Sepang |
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Posted by Staff
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Thursday, 15 November 2007 |
Heavy rain in Sepang drastically limited track time for the Fiat Yamaha Team
today, as they began three days of testing in Malaysia alongside several other
MotoGP teams. With Valentino Rossi still at home recuperating from a broken
hand, it is just Jorge Lorenzo taking part in the team’s testing programme this
week, the 20-year old Spaniard riding the M1 for the second time since the end
of the season as he prepares to officially join the team in January.
After rain early in the morning it took some time for the track to dry
out and Lorenzo did not get started until just after 11am. The MotoGP rookie
completed 26 laps as he continued to develop his understanding of his new bike
and tyres and was looking forward to continuing his work in the afternoon, but
another heavy rainstorm after lunch meant the track did not dry out sufficiently
again and the team abandoned testing for the day. Lorenzo posted the 9th fastest
time of the day with a lap of 2’04.433, with the unofficial time sheets topped
by Randy de Puniet, in a time of 2’03.033.
Jorge Lorenzo (9th,
2’04.433, 26 Laps)
“It’s a pity about the weather but overall
the first day has been quite positive, even if I haven’t been so fast. We
managed to do 26 laps before lunch and then the rain came and we weren’t able to
do anymore, so hopefully it will be better tomorrow because we have a lot to do!
All the time I’m feeling more natural on the bike and I can feel the difference
from Valencia, but I need to make a few changes to my riding style in order to
fully adapt and we’re working on this. It’s hard for me to use all the power at
the moment and I need to learn to be slower and smoother in the corners and to
open the throttle a bit earlier. I’m struggling a bit to find the fast lap times
but this is normal because there is still so much about the bike that I don’t
understand. Tomorrow we have some new things to try, including a new fork, and I
will just keep on working steadily.”
Daniele Romagnoli –
Team Manager
“Today we started with Jorge at what is a very
different track to Valencia, so we began with a base set-up from Yamaha while he
got a feel for the bike on this track. He is starting to learn and understand
more all the time about the MotoGP bike but he needs to improve some things and
one of the things he’s concentrating on is braking deeper into the corner. He
doesn’t have the best feeling going into the corner at the moment; he’s got some
lack of grip and he’s not 100% comfortable and so we’ve been trying some
different engine braking settings to try to improve this. We already have some
plans about how to improve the package for him but unfortunately the rain
stopped us today and so tomorrow we will start again and see where we get
to.”
Masahiko Nakajima – Fiat Yamaha Team
Director
“Unfortunately we were only able to test for three
hours today so we couldn’t do very much. There are two main aims for this test;
the first is to help Jorge become fully accustomed to a four-stroke bike,
especially in relation to the engine braking character, which is very different
to what he’s used to on a two-stroke. The second thing he has to get used to and
understand quickly is the carbon brakes, which are very different to the steel
discs he has been using in 250. These are two major factors for the rider to
understand and they also influence the entry into the corner, so he has a lot to
learn in these two areas. Once he has overcome these factors then we are
confident he will quickly be able to develop in other areas so this is where
we’re focused for these three days.”
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