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MotoGP 2002 DVD
Complete review of 2002 season in which Valentino Rossi dominated first year of new four-stroke class. Three hours packed with action and legendary Rossi-Biaggi rivality.
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2008-01-23 Sepang test day 2 rider claims and times
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 Favourable weather conditions allowed MotoGP teams and riders to continue their work in Sepang, preparing for start of the season that is not so far away. Once again, Randy de Puniet was fastest rider on the track, riding well under track lap record. Second fastest was Colin Edwards, in front of Fiat Yamaha duo of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. Casey Stoner continued steady improvement, gaining confidence in Ducati Desmosedici GP8. Read rider claims after second day of the test in Sepang.
Randy de Puniet:
Another good day for us, I ran with 16.5 inch tyres today after trying the 16 inch tyres yesterday. We tried different front end geometry and suspension but returned to the setting we had yesterday. I also did a race simulation run and was very happy because I ran consistent lap times under 2m02.5s. Tomorrow we will go back to testing 16 inch tyres and would like to push harder in the morning session, if the conditions are good. I had a small crash at lunchtime, the front end just folded under me, nothing seriously damaged and I’m OK.
Colin Edwards:
I am so happy right now. Yesterday I was confused after the crash and what the problem could be. We had been struggling with engine braking but after we found the cause we went at it again this morning and the difference was huge. We made a small change to the new chassis and things were much better. I was more comfortable and the bike was working just how I wanted. We burned a few laps and I have to say ‘hats-off’ to Michelin and a big thank you! We had problems last year, but without a doubt they have redeemed themselves and more; I am really pleased and we should know better than to doubt Michelin anyway.At tests you don’t push, not at 110% anyway. but I felt good out there. I was calming down and putting in less effort but I was still doing 2:01s and that little series of laps we made was great.
Valentino Rossi:
Today we continued to work on bike set-up in the same way as yesterday and on the new engine, the electronics and the tyres. We continued with the pneumatic-valve engine as it’s important to get as much mileage as possible behind us with this engine to check the performance, the reliability and just to gain experience with it. With the electronics we worked a lot on the acceleration mapping and I’m quite happy with this. Although it doesn’t make us any faster, it helps me to be more comfortable on the bike. Finally we tested some different rear tyres with Bridgestone and also some qualifying tyres, although we didn’t improve on the time with the soft tyres so we need to work more in this area. We completed a lot of work today and hopefully we can have another good day tomorrow to finish.
Jorge Lorenzo:
Today was a good day! We continued in the same way as yesterday, working on our overall performance and we improved by one second, so this is very encouraging. I tested the new pneumatic-valve engine and this was interesting and I found some improvement with it. We’re still working on the hard braking and, although we have improved our performance in these areas a bit, we still need to do more work on this. Likewise I’m still adjusting my riding style to better suit the M1 but this is becoming more natural and comfortable for me day-by-day. Finally we also began testing tyres with Michelin today. We tried quite a lot of new material, especially for the rear, and found some good stuff. I’m happy with the day’s work and hopefully we can have an even better day tomorrow.
Casey Stoner:
That was much better than yesterday! I felt much more comfortable on the bike from the first lap, so much so that we were able to start some front tyre tests for Bridgestone straight away. We've found some really interesting things and definitely a good base for the season - the Japanese guys are doing a great job. After lunch we starter a long run and everything went great for the first ten laps. I had a good pace together, inside lap record, but then we started to get a strange vibration from the rear that was upsetting the bike in a couple of braking areas. I preferred to stop to try and work out what it was and we found a small problem with the clutch. We went back out again on the same tyres but started to get cramps in my left arm, so we decided it was better not to push it too much and to sit the rest of the day out. When I think that I was still suffering from pain in my shoulder only a week ago I have to be really happy with how things are going. I'm still not 100% but I'm able to ride much better than I expected. Now I know that I can begin making the right preparations to be ready for the start of the season. We'll keep working with Bridgestone tomorrow and give the new qualifiers a try.
John Hopkins:
We started out this morning by running through some tyres that Bridgestone have brought here, basically to try and identify what will work for the first race of the season in Qatar. It was a useful test, I felt pretty comfortable on the bike and I think it will stand us in good stead come Qatar. We've also continued the evaluation of the two chassis options we have here, and at the moment we've gone with the one closest to the 2007 spec. The other chassis option has some positive points, but we need to do some more work on a few areas before we go with it on the race bike. The engineers will now take this chassis back to Japan, together with the data on it that we've collected, and I guess we will be testing further revisions pretty soon. Tomorrow I'll do a long distance run, and then we'll be looking to refine the set-up of the bike to suit my personal preferences, which I'm looking forward to.
Loris Capirossi:
The more I work with the bike and my crew the more I understand the GSV-R and what will be best for me in the future. I did a lot more laps today and every time we change parts or settings I feel my knowledge of the bike increases and I’m feeling more and more at home. I am confident that with combination of the best parts and settings that I have tested I can go quite a bit quicker than I have done so far, and most importantly the more I understand the GSV-R the more we can make it a better race bike.
Andrea Dovizioso:
I’m not totally satisfied about today, but this is because I set high targets for myself and want to solve as many problems as possible and as quickly as I can! We still have some issues with the engine braking setting and we do have some rear-end chattering from the bike. This in turn makes it harder to set-up the chassis so we are working hard together to find the best setting, which will give us a solution. It’s tiring riding a bike, which does this, so we will work hard to improve it. We are working hard with Michelin, as I know we can move forward together. Today I tried a qualifying tyre to find out how much faster I could be and we went around three-tenths quicker, which shows we need to improve the general setting of the bike.
Shinya Nakano:
Finally I set good lap times on race tyres the bike felt good today, especially around noon but in the afternoon I could not set so fast times as the track temperature was too high, even for a qualifying tyre. But I did find a very good rear tyre with Bridgestone today. The chassis was the same as yesterday but we found some very good front fork settings. I lowered the ride height on the rear and that helped us improve the feeling a lot. We didn’t try much on the electronics; we will do that at Phillip Island (Australia) next week. Tomorrow we will try some different chassis options and work on tyre testing. Everything is going really well for us here.
Nicky Hayden:
We used the standard engine in the morning. I set my fastest lap, and then we started using the pneumatic-valve engine after about 25 laps. With that engine the bike did feel more like the prototype I rode last November, I guess because the bike was designed to have that engine, so maybe the extra weight makes it work a bit better. We did have a few little issues with the engine, it’s got smoother power and more rpm but top speed is a bit down, plus I was coming in every 12 laps to check the system so it wasn’t so easy to get into a rhythm. But I think the pneumatic valves are the way to go because that engine’s got more potential. We also tested a clutch with the pneumatic-valve engine, plus some setting parts and fuel injection, more engine type of stuff. We stayed on race tyres all day and made a little bit of progress, four tenths or so. We also tested a couple of tyres, I tried a 16 rear but the balance of the bike wasn’t right with that tyre, so we need to look at the data and see what’s happening. Now we’re going to sit down, talk about it and see which engine we’re going to use tomorrow.
Chris Vermeulen:
We had a couple of problems with my first bike this morning that needed sorting out, but that is the kind of thing to be expected when you are testing a new bike with so many new parts. After we had ironed them out we got through a lot of detailed set-up testing which took up a large portion of the day. Obviously testing development tyres and brakes is a major thing to do and takes a lot of time, but it was something we needed to do and made good progress. We have gathered a lot of information over the last two days and we certainly know the priorities for the next improvements.
Anthony West:
This morning we kept the changes to a minimum and I just concentrated on improving my feeling with the bike, and also my lap time. I managed to improve with each run, so I was pretty happy about that. We also tested a new front tyre with a slightly different profile than I've used before, and there was some improvement in the front end feeling as a result. This afternoon we tried to do some rear tyre testing, but it was difficult to get a good feel for the different tyres, because the track lost a lot of grip as the surface temperature went up; I just ended up sliding around everywhere. Tomorrow will be a hard day, because I'm scheduled to do a race simulation, but it will be interesting to see how my lap time averages out over a long run.
Alex De Angelis:
This morning was very good because I improved my lap time; I was consistently faster than yesterday. We spent a lot of time working on the rear suspension settings and tried a lot of options, mainly spring rates, while running race tyres. The bike now behaves a lot better and I am better off the corners than before. We played with the electronics a little to get the bike to spin up and slide off the corners, that’s good for my riding style. I didn’t try any qualifying tyres today.
Toni Elias:
I am very happy on how we have worked today. We have tried many things during the day, mostly in the afternoon hours. This hasn’t allowed us to be between the fastest, but in this moment it’s not what it counts. Notwithstanding the heat I feel really good, I am physically ready, even if the shoulder I just had surgery on it’s not at the best yet. But this doesn’t worry me and I can’t wait to sit back on the bike tomorrow to improve even more.
Marco Melandri:
Today went a little bit better than yesterday. I feel better with the geometry now and we can start to work on the suspension. I'm still not completely used to the power delivery of the Ducati because there is plenty of it but it's not easy to make the most of it with my riding style. We are working on this aspect though and we'll find the best configuration for me. Tomorrow I want to start testing the new Bridgestones and I think they can also help me find something that will allow me to go a little faster. It is proving to be more difficult than I thought but there is no reason why we can't find a solution to the current problems. We'll keep working calmly and I'm sure we'll improve!
Sylvain Guintoli:
This morning, in one of my first laps, I made it to improve my best lap time obtained yesterday by almost two second. I am very happy of this; I think we are following the right direction. In the afternoon we have tried different technical solutions and some new tyres. Also with the Team everything is going well, we understand each other better day by day. This is very important to continue to improve our performances on track.
Test times - day 2 - Sepang test:
1.Randy De Puniet - Honda Lcr 2:01.139
2.Colin Edwards - Yamaha Tech3 2:01.327
3.Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha Team 2:01.437
4.Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha Team 2:01.583
5.Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro 2:01.638
6.John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing 2:01.874
7.Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki 2:01.917
8.Andrea Dovizioso - Jir Team Scot 2:02.006
9.Shinya Nakano - Honda Gresini 2:02.095
10.Nicky Hayden - Repsol Hrc 2:02.102
11.James Toseland - Yamaha Tech3 2:02.276
12.Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki 2:02.371
13.Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing 2:02.579
14.Alex De Angelis - Honda Gresini 2:02.914
15.Toni Elias - Alice Team 2:03.311
16.Marco Melandri - Ducati Marlboro 2:03.380
17.Olivier Jacque - Kawasaki Racing 2:03.462
18.Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Team 2:04.217
19.Tamaki Serizawa - Kawasaki Racing 2:04.382
20.Niccolò Canepa - Ducati Test 2:04.427
Sepang Lap Record
Casey Stoner (Ducati) 2007 - 2'02.108
Sepang Best Lap
Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 2006 - 2'00.605
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