Ben Spies satisfied but Jorge Lorenzo annoyed after final test night – MotoGP news
The final pre season test was concluded with a last night test on Monday.
This was also the final night of the winter testing, for the 800cc machines. New regulations have brought back the 1000cc MotoGP prototype machines applying in 2012.
Ben Spies will be heading confident to his first race of the season and as a Factory Yamaha Racing rider, after stepping up form Monster Yamaha Tech3 in to the empty seat of Valentino Rossi when he moved to Marlboro Ducati Team for 2011 season. Spies
concluded at third place on the final night of the last test, but 2010 world Champion Jorge Lorenzo was not happy with his finish at seventh place on the last time sheet of test night.
On the last day of the test natural element was key factor which could ruin the test night, as the sand storm hit the Losail Track and cover it with a fine layer of sand, leaving hard track conditions for the riders to run. However, rider still managed
to start at a slow pace and galloped as the conditions got better lately.
The Repsol Honda Team duo Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa were the chart leaders on the final moment. The RC212V covered four places in top-five positions, only Spies’ M1 was in between at third place.
The American rookie stepped up the time sheet steadily and at a time near by the mid of test session he was standing on second place. Ben Spies availed the last testing opportunity before the race start weekend to experiment with the geometry balance
with the help of Tom Houseworth, the Crew Chief of Factory Yamaha Racing team. They managed to get some more traction out of it, and ending the night as the third fastest seat on the time sheet.
“It's been a good Test, I'm happy with it. We tried a few different things today and improved the bike some more,” he said.
There is still couple of days left to study the date collected before the test day starts for Sunday’s race, the race will bring a lot of riding opportunities.
“I was pretty confident coming here after Sepang, hopefully we can make the bike even better before the race. Last year we saw that the M1 worked well at every track, it's Yamaha's strong point and I think it's the same this year,” he said.
Defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo worked hard to progress from the previous night’s test session. He was held back by the desert winds and could not mange to get a suitable set-up according to the weather conditions. Lorenzo ran for an extended
distance to check the fuel consumption of his M1, concluding on seventh place.
“Today wasn't the best day for me. It was not because my riding is bad, I always admit when it is, we struggled with the set up of the bike during the session and unfortunately we didn't make a step forward. We also tried a different swing arm today
but it didn't make an improvement,” he said.
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