Positive Second Day of Testing in Qatar for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP

2015-03-16 08:23
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi completed the second night of preseason testing at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar this evening, finishing in fourth and fifth place respectively.

Beating the crowd, Jorge Lorenzo was one of the first riders to leave the pits and face the slippery circuit. Though today’s conditions were cool and overcast the competition soon heated up when he was joined by the rest of the field. Lorenzo positioned himself as a key protagonist with a 1’55.500s lap and slotted into second place in the time standings. He spent the remaining time of the session concentrating on a race set-up and finished the day in fourth place, +0.593s from the front.

Teammate Rossi followed the trend and waited until just after 6pm to hit the track. He continued working on the technical setup of his YZR-M1 and posted a 1’55.983s lap. As the day progressed so did his feeling with the bike and he was able to improve his time to 1’55.581s and take fifth position in the standings, +0.674s from the front, directly behind his teammate.

With today’s progress, Lorenzo and Rossi also hold fourth and fifth place respectively in the combined session time sheets.


Jorge Lorenzo

99 Jorge Lorenzo
4th / 1'55.500 / 51 laps


“It was another difficult day. The conditions of the track improved not a lot, but a little bit. Even though we improved the feeling with the bike a little, we are still far from the fastest time. We tried many things, but everyone else made a bigger step in their work, so let’s see what happens tomorrow. We’ve found something important and we’ll also do a long-distance run to see how the bike works.”


46 Valentino Rossi
5th / 1'55.581 / 61 laps


“It was a difficult day for me, because we tried to work a lot on the setting of the bike to improve and to be faster, but we didn’t get the improvement we expected. I was in a difficult situation, but fortunately in the last hour we modified something. We did a step back and went a different way. The last part of the test was good, because I was fast with both the hard and the soft tyre and I was able to improve my position so I’m in the top five, but especially I was able to improve my pace and stay in the 1’55’s so at the end it was not so bad. We have to continue working for tomorrow and try to fix as much as possible for the weekend of the race. We have some other things to try; some different parts, settings and we have to decide on the tyres. It looks like today was hard work, a lot of laps, a lot of effort, but at the end it was a good day. We did good work and we found something good at the end.”

Valentino Rossi



Team Director Massimo Meregalli
Team Director

“It has been a very busy day today for the team and the riders. On Jorge’s side they focused on electronic adjustments and settings and on Vale’s side they focused on mechanical settings. It’s definitely been a better day than yesterday. Jorge’s crew made an important learning that they need to test on a long run and in Vale’s last run he was able to get back some extra feeling and confidence and was able to provide some extra info that will help us to find more solutions. We still have some work to do to find half a second to close the gap but we are making progress in the right direction and have both riders further up the timesheets. We are confident that for tomorrow’s session when there is more rubber on the tarmac we will be able to close the gap even further.”


NOTES


The extended imagery from today's test session at the Losail International Circuit (Qatar) is available on www.yamahamotogp.com.



TEST RESULT (DAY 2) Results




1. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) Ducati Team 1'54.097
2. Marc Marquez (SPA) Repsol Honda Team 1'55.091
3. Andrea Iannone (ITA) Ducati Team 1'55.104
4. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'55.500
5. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1'55.581
6. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team 1'55.582
7. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) CWM LCR Honda 1'55.624
8. Bradley Smith (GBR) Monster Yamaha Tech3 1'55.648
9. Pol Espargarò (SPA) Monster Yamaha Tech3 1'55.658
10. Karel Abraham (CZE) AB Motoracing 1'55.765
11. Yonny Hernandez (COL) Pramac Racing 1'55.772
12. Aleix Espargaro (SPA) Team Suzuki MotoGP 1'55.795
13. Scott Redding (GBR) Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 1'55.803
14. Maverick Viñales (SPA) Team Suzuki MotoGP 1'55.810
15. Hector Barbera (SPA) Avintia Racing 1'56.058
16. Nicky Hayden (USA) Drive M7 Aspar 1'56.104
17. Mike Di Meglio (FRA) Avintia Racing 1'56.259
18. Eugene Laverty (IRL) Drive M7 Aspar 1'56.342
19. Michele Pirro (ITA) Pramac Racing 1'56.476
20. Stefan Bradl (GER) Forward Racing 1'56.724
21. Jack Miller (AUS) CWM LCR Honda 1'56.758
22. Danilo Petrucci (ITA) Pramac Racing 1'56.762
23. Loris Baz (FRA) Forward Racing 1'56.936
24. Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 1'57.273
25. Alex De Angelis (RSM) Octo IodaRacing Team 1'57.390
26. Marco Melandri (ITA) Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 1'57.982


Full standings Results


CIRCUIT INFORMATION




Technical Informations
Circuit Losail
Location Doha, Qatar
Length (m) 5380
Width (m) 12
Turns 16
Turns righ 10
Turns left 6
Pole position left
Grand Prix of Qatar



Record Lap
Time 1'55.153
Rider C.Stoner
Bike Ducati
Year 2008

Source: Yamaha MotoGP

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