LORENZO WORKING HARD TO IMPROVE SET-UP IN SEPANG

New Fiat Yamaha pilot Jorge Lorenzo resumed the task of getting to grips with his YZR-M1 in Sepang today, ahead of his inaugural MotoGP race in Qatar in one month’s time. After a promising showing here last time out, Lorenzo and his team’s clear focus for this test is to refine and improve set-up, and they began work today with the same bike they used at the last test. Lorenzo and his team-mate Valentino Rossi formed part of a field of just nine riders on track today, with the majority of teams having chosen to test in Australia last week instead.

The Spaniard’s main issue to address is front-end feel going into the corners and he was disappointed not to make more progress in this area today. Nonetheless his engineers were able to gather some important information and they will continue with their task tomorrow, as well as resuming tyre testing with Michelin. Lorenzo posted the 4th best time of the day, his lap of 2’02.654 coming on the 24th of 57 laps. Rossi topped the time sheets with an impressive lap of 2’00.300, set using a qualifying tyre.

Jorge Lorenzo:

“We are working as we planned but unfortunately today we haven’t been able to improve as much as we hoped on the problems we had at the last test. The biggest issue is the feeling I have with the front-end going into the turns; I need more confidence in this area so we still have some work to do to find the key. We have some more ideas after today so tomorrow we will try again, working in a slightly different direction, and hopefully we will be able to make more progress on this.”