If Honda is estatic with their riders, Yamaha isn’t exactly upset with a second and fifth place on the first day of testing, with Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies both riding under last year’s race times (Lorenzo took third and Spies 4th at Sepang in October).
Spies totalled one his M1’s early this morning that needed a rebuild and he was one of the first riders to stop testing before the 6pm curfew call, satisfied with his fifth place and expecting better times tomorrow.
According to the Yamah press release, tomorrow both riders will be working on various areas of the 2011 race bike’s development along with testing tyres for Bridgestone and explained the reason why the M1’s were on track with a plain black carbon fibre fairing instead of the expected corporate colors.
Which is due to the fact that Lorenzo and Spies Yamaha’s will have a special ‘one-event’ Yamaha Factory Racing Blue de-branded design to be filmed tomorrow for a Yamaha corporate video as part of the ongoing Yamaha World GP 50th Anniversary activities and the design will only be used for the remaining two days of the Sepang test.
Jorge Lorenzo 2nd, 44 laps 2’01.
977“It’s been a good start today, we tried a few things and it seemed for everything we tried it was a little bit better, not big improvements but as I said in Valencia at the test last year, the 2011 bike seems to have less wheelie so we can open the throttle earlier in the corners and in some corners I have better corner speed as well.
Today was my first ride wearing Alpinestars so there were a lot of things for me to get used to.
We pushed a bit more towards the end of the session and got faster, we will continue to make the step tomorrow.
”Ben Spies, 5th, 24 laps 2’02.
332“Today was good.
The weather forecast wasn’t so great so to get as much time on the bike as we had was good.
We set out to not do too many laps to avoid getting tired, it’s easy to overdo it on the first day.
We did enough to get my head up to speed then relaxed as we have a lot to look at over the next two days for Yamaha and Bridgestone.
It’s my first day with the new team and they were fantastic, everybody worked together really well.
We ended up going faster than we did here last year in the race which shows my confidence in the bike and the team.
There’s more to come from the bike and from me too, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
”Wilco Zeelenberg, Team Manager for Jorge Lorenzo“I’m very pleased with our first session here at Sepang.
I’m actually quite surprised at Jorge’s speed as normally after a two month break it takes him longer to get into the rhythm because he’s a very smooth rider, so a break means you miss the rhythm.
We had received good information at the end of the day so we have been able to make some steps and reach some decisions.
Tomorrow we have some more things to test but for today we are quite satisfied.
”Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director and Team Manager for Ben Spies“After a long rest we have to be satisfied with the first session.
Our riders used today to get back their speed and we are happy to see they were both consistently fast.
Tomorrow we will start to do some work on the bikes and collect further data.
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