Team Suzuki Press Office – May 4. Following a positive race for Team SUZUKI ECSTAR yesterday at Jerez, the MotoGP™ riders stayed on in Andalucia for a day of testing in a bid to make steps forward.
Team SUZUKI ECSTAR used the day to continue the development-process of its GSX-RRs, following a pre-determined plan and reacting to the information collected in the last three-days of the race weekend.
The main objectives were to verify improvements made on the chatter issues and to look for better traction; the latest ideas being pursued with updated electronics, but also with a new swingarm and variations in machine geometry.
Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales made a number of runs, recording a total of 63 and 79 laps respectively.
Aleix Espargaro:
“It’s been a good day of testing. We worked to improve traction and to better -understand both the positives and negatives of what we have tested. Today said to me that probably a hard front tyre would have been better in yesterday’s race, but the other thing is that we improved a lot the feeling with the traction of the bike. We tested both a different swingarm and electronics software, finally collecting a lot of information on what works best and what is worse. At this point I feel that we have a very competitive package, it’s not a matter of pure power any more but to exploit better what we have available. With my engineers we worked on some new ideas and finally we found some very interesting paths to follow for the future.”
Maverick Viñales:
“We ran a lot of laps today with the objective of testing as much as we could. To me the new swingarm resulted to have positives and negatives so it gave us a lot of ideas as to what else we can try. We had available some new electronics and we managed to be consistent on a pace that was much faster than yesterday in the race. The very good thing gleaned from the day is that we tested some new ideas in geometry and they gave us very positive improvements in braking: I feel much more confident in getting more into the corner with brakes than before. This is much more important for tracks like Le Mans with very slow corners, which is the next race.”
JEREZ TEST – Classification:
1. LORENZO, Jorge – Movistar Yamaha MotoGP – 1:38.508 – Lap 49 / 52
2. ROSSI, Valentino – Movistar Yamaha MotoGP – 1:38.550 – +0.042 – Lap 60 / 66
3. CRUTCHLOW, Cal – CWM LCR Honda – 1:38.814 – +0.306 – Lap 29 / 64
4. ESPARGARO, Aleix – Team Suzuki ECSTAR – 1:38.890 – +0.382 – Lap 22 / 63
5. MARQUEZ, Marc – Repsol Honda Team – 1:38.968 – +0.460 – Lap 4 / 31
6. SMITH, Bradley – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – 1:39.339 – +0.831 – Lap 41 / 41
7. HERNANDEZ, Yonny – Pramac Racing – 1:39.357 – +0.849 – Lap 54 / 56
8. REDDING, Scott – EG 0.0 Marc VDS – 1:39.370 – +0.862 – Lap 104 / 105
9. VIÑALES, Maverick – Team Suzuki ECSTAR – 1:39.475 – +0.967 – Lap 74 / 79
