|
|
2008-01-22 Lorenzo joins Rossi in gravel but stays unhurt
 Be first to comment this story
 After being officially welcomed into the Yamaha fold at the Team’s presentation in Turin last week, Jorge Lorenzo was out on track in Fiat Yamaha Team colours for the first time today in Sepang. The three-day Malaysian test is the first of four pre-season tests before the Spanish rookie makes his MotoGP debut in March.
It was an interesting day for the Michelin-shod 20-year-old, who completed some promising work despite an incident at turn 13, when he lost the front and slid into the gravel. Like his team-mate Valentino Rossi, who suffered a similar fate, Lorenzo was entirely unhurt and was back out on his second bike almost immediately. He completed 43 laps on a scorching Sepang day, trying out a new 2008-specification engine and also some new electronics, registering improvements with both. The Michelin rider stayed on base tyres today and will begin tyre-testing tomorrow as he continues in his task of getting to grips with his new YZR-M1. His time of 2’02.563 was good enough for ninth place while team-mate Rossi was just above him in sixth, with a time of 2’02.490. Randy de Puniet was fastest today after recording a lap of 2’01.377.
Jorge Lorenzo:
Unfortunately I lost the front and crashed at turn 13 but it wasn’t a big fall and I wasn’t hurt at all. I went back to the pits and went out on my other bike, forgot about the problem and started improving straight away! In this way it was a positive day for me. We had the chance to test a new engine, with which I found to be an improvement compared to the previous one, and we also worked on some new electronics. I still need to improve some things about my riding style, and we need to work on the bike in the hard braking areas because I am lacking some stability there. Today we didn’t change anything with the tyres but tomorrow we will start some tyre testing with Michelin.
Daniele Romagnoli:
Luckily Jorge wasn’t hurt so despite his crash it was a good day’s work for us. We continued with the base set-up we had in Jerez, where he was quite fast, and it seems to work okay. The main area we need to work on is the hard braking areas, where we still have some vibration, so we need to concentrate on improving the bike for those parts of the track. We tried a new-specification engine and some new electronics and Jorge felt very comfortable with these. Tomorrow we will continue with general set-up work and also start testing new tyres with Michelin; we have a lot to do but so far things are going quite well.
Test times - Sepang - day 1
1. Randy De Puniet - Honda Lcr 2:01.377
2. Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Hrc 2:01.864
3. Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki 2:02.074
4. Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki 2:02.416
5. Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro 2:02.457
6. Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha Team 2:02.490
7. Colin Edwards - Yamaha Tech3 2:02.549
8. Nicky Hayden - Repsol Hrc 2:02.558
9. Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha Team 2:02.563
10. Shinya Nakano - Honda Gresini 2:02.622
11. John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing 2:02.628
12. Andrea Dovizioso - Jir Team Scot 2:02.783
13. James Toseland - Yamaha Tech3 2:03.264
14. Alex De Angelis - Honda Gresini 2:03.301
15. Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing 2:03.387
16. Olivier Jacque - Kawasaki Racing 2:03.863
17 Toni Elias - Alice Team 2:03.954
18 Marco Melandri - Ducati Marlboro 2:04.414
19 Niccolò Canepa - Ducati Test 2:05.580
20 Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Team 2:06.000
21 Tamaki Serizawa - Kawasaki Racing 2:23.590
Sepang Lap Record
Casey Stoner (Ducati) 2007 - 2:02.108
Sepang Best Lap
Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 2006 - 2:00.605
|
Back to MotoGP news home
|
|
|
