Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Phillip Island Testing Plans Dampened by Rain

Energized from the good results at the previous test two weeks ago, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo headed to Australia eager to benefit from the data collected in Sepang for the second official three-day pre-season test. However, when they arrived at the Phillip Island circuit this morning, the wet and changeable weather conditions prevented the teammates from carrying out their testing as planned. They finished today’s session in sixth and sixteenth place respectively.

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team was up for the challenge today of repeating their strong ride of two weeks ago as testing kicked off at the second Official MotoGP Test in Australia, but mixed conditions allowed for only limited time on the Phillip Island track.

After two hours of waiting for the weather to improve, the 2016 MotoGP test at Phillip Island finally got underway for riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, who used the track time wisely and focused on trying out the Michelin rain tyres and the electronics in damp conditions.

Though the weather was less than ideal, Rossi didn’t let the opportunity go to waste to test his two Yamahas – the model closer to the 2015 YZR-M1 and the 2016 edition – on a wet track. Despite the brief windows of dry track time he worked diligently throughout the day and set 27 laps in total. Known to be an expert when conditions get tough, he set a fastest time of 1’33.088s at the end of the session when a sudden dry-spell in the final hour saw him dash to sixth place.

Lorenzo also had a productive day. He was the first of the teammates to come out of the box and steadily increased his pace as he got acclimatised to his Yamaha on the damp Australian track. He was in sixth place at the end of his two hours on track until rays of sunlight broke through in the afternoon, signaling that it was time for the Spaniard to kick up the pace a notch. He set a 1’39.825s to take third in the provisional ranking before rain put a halt to the action again. Lorenzo returned to the track for another stint later in the afternoon, completing two laps on a slick tyre in dry conditions to bring his total to 24 laps, but chose to end the session early and completed the day in 16th place.

Valentino Rossi said, “It’s very positive to come here to Phillip Island, because we have a lot of different things to try, especially tyres and we know this track is always very demanding for the compound. Unfortunately we expected summer, but it’s winter. Today the season changed a minimum of ten times, we had to wait a lot and it was quite frustrating because it was important to do some work, but we didn’t do a lot of laps. We were able to do some wet laps and also some dry laps at the end. We hope that tomorrow and Friday the weather will become better. It’s always difficult to find the right window to use the intermediate tyre, but it can help. In the past, with the slick, it was quite dangerous to go out in half and half conditions. I think this year we can use the time more effectively, but here in Phillip Island the feeling with the bike and the tyres changed a lot compared to last year, so we need to work; every track can be different.”

Jorge Lorenzo said, “It was a very unfortunate day. We are here in the summer and, as we can see in the Superbike race, there’s usually good weather, but today we’ve been unlucky. Mixed conditions; not really wet and not really good conditions for riding and there were not many minutes to try in these conditions. It was especially important to test the new electronics on the wet to get settled a little bit. I did only two laps on the slicks and had very strange feelings. I’m really looking forward to see tomorrow, with a complete day of good conditions, how the bike is working with the Michelin tyres.”

Smith closes rain affected opening day in Australia in third position

Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro started the first day of testing at Phillip Island confidently as they powered on despite the rain falling intermittently throughout the day. Even though the damp weather disrupted the testing plan, it allowed the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team to gather valuable data and also test the new wet Michelin tyres as they prepare for the forthcoming season.

Bradley Smith got straight to work and keenly set about experimenting with the electronics and the setup, which he established at the Sepang test, before completing 27 laps, as he finished the day strongly in third and just one tenth back from second place. Whilst Pol Espargaro, continued his efforts for the impending season as he used the weather to build confidence with his wet setup. The 2013 Moto2 World Champion undertook a total of 20 laps and set his fastest time on his final run which left him just half a second back from his teammate and confident of improving tomorrow with dry weather conditions expected.