Repsol Honda riders Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa were the fastest riders in today’s first day of testing in the second pre-season test at Sepang.
Stoner was as usual one of the riders who put in the less number of laps in the 8 hour test and even elected to quit earlier than anyone else after a rain storm that lasted for almost any hour brought the test to a virtual standstill, but he was also the only rider to lap – in the few that he did – in the high 2.
01s.
Both riders are still complaining regarding chatter issues.
The Spaniard also had slight engine issue and he too mentioned the extra 4kgs that the team had to add after the December rule change which is making set-up more difficult.
Casey Stoner – 1st – 2′01.
761“It was really hard to leave Switzerland, Ally woke up for a feed at the same time as I was leaving for the airport and I didn’t really want to leave! The first day of testing has gone well, we started off where we left last time but the track conditions have been a little worse.
We have a some work to do, this morning we managed to compare a few things back to back, we’ve tried a new set of brake disks to try and reduce the brake fade that I’ve been having at the last test so that’s been an improvement.
We’re trying a few other things with set up, to shorten the wheelbase and get a little more traction.
We have a couple of things we can try to change the stiffness and also move the weight around a little bit to try and upset the chatter and reduce the frequency.
This afternoon I have no doubt we would have gone a second or a second and a half faster, but the rain came out and the track didn’t dry up enough to warrant going out so we’ll wait until tomorrow.
” Dani Pedrosa – 2nd – 2′02.
005“It was a good test for us, we made a couple of good runs.
The track was very dirty at the beginning of the practice and you could feel the grip level was not so good, but it’s been improving little by little during the day and we could work through our testing program.
It was much warmer than in the last test; after the first run I was sweating more than in the three days we came here last time! Today we did some tests on the engine, to see how can we manage the power delivery, and also worked on the chassis.
Also, on the rider position to work on the balance and it was positive.
In the afternoon I did some laps in the rain, but on my second run it started to dry up quickly, so we finished earlier.
On my last run, I had a small issue, I saw a red light on the dashboard, so I took the clutch and stopped.
We have to analyse now what it was”.