The final one-day test of the season for MotoGP teams and riders was held at the 5.403km Brno Circuit, venue for yesterday’s Czech Republic Grand Prix, round 11 of the 17 round 2009 World Championship. With the possibility of rain at some point during the day the riders took to the track as soon as the gate opened in an effort to assess the development parts they hope will improve performance and results over the remaining six grands prix.

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda, was the fastest of the Honda RC212V riders taking part in the test ending the day with third fastest time overall. He and his crew concentrated on overall machine set up options based upon feed-back from the yesterday’s 22 lap race. The changes enabled the Spaniard to better his best lap in the race by half a second.

When the first rain showers finally arrived at 14.00. Pedrosa, and his fellow MotoGP riders, stayed in their pit boxes for three hours before returning to the track for the final hour of the test. The hour was spent evaluating completely new suspension parts but he did not have sufficient time to assess the full potential of the new package.

Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda team mate, Andrea Dovizioso, was also faster today than he had been in the race but by just one tenth of a second.
Dovi also tested the new suspension components today his comments on performance reflecting those of his team mate. The Italian contested the grand prix with a newly designed and developed swing-arm on his factory spec RC212V and today further refined overall machine set up with swing-arm and new suspension to improve upon his race pace and set the fifth fastest lap time of the test..

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: 3rd – 1m 56.747s
“It was a useful test session today, even though the rain tried to mess with our plans, and I hope that what we’ve learnt can help us for the next races. In the morning we worked on some set-up improvements from the race weekend and we were able to find some more speed. After lunch we were set to try some new suspension components which we managed to do when the track dried after the rain. Of course it takes time to perfect the set-up when you try new things, but our pace was quite good and the feeling was promising. Overall, this was a worthwhile test.”

Andrea Dovizioso, Repsol Honda: 5th – 1m 57.764s
“It was good to get some testing time today because the new rules mean any extra track time is very valuable. It was an interesting day because we tried quite a few set-up options including some different suspension parts, and this was a first for me. Because of the limited time, we couldn’t evaluate their full potential, but the initial feedback was positive. We also continued to work with the set-up for the new swing-arm we used this weekend and managed to improve our speed. Honda is working very hard for the remaining races and also for next year, and the team is fully committed.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback