Promising start for PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team in Valencia

2018-11-23 19:23
After an exciting first day yesterday, the PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team continued their preparations for a debut campaign in the MotoGP World Championship with more positive results today. The second and final day of the Valencia test allowed Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo to complete a more comprehensive programme with their Yamaha YZR-M1 machines, the pair finishing the test in sixth and seventeenth place respectively.

Once again both riders took to the track at around 1pm this afternoon, improving on their best laps from yesterday on their very first outing. Morbidelli again showed a swift adaptation to his new surroundings and after 58 laps of the Ricardo Tormo Circuit the Italian rider finished sixth fastest with a best effort of 1’30.974. On the other side of the garage, Quartararo slashed almost two seconds off his best from yesterday, clocking a 1’32.091 to finish sixteenth fastest after 63 laps. The day ended with five minutes of practice starts.

The PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team will be back in action next week at the Jerez Circuit – Angel Nieto, Spain, for another two-day session on 28-29 November, before signing off until 2019.




Wilco Zeelenberg - Team Manager
“It has been a very positive test for the whole team. Fabio [Quartararo] has completed his first laps on a MotoGP bike and watching his progression, and seeing where he finished up, I think he has done a good job. We are trying to guide him in the best way possible but once he is on the bike it is him that makes the decisions. Franco [Morbidelli] has more experience and was fast from the start, I think we have all been impressed by his lap times and the flow of information is also very good. The start gun has been fired and now we have to keep working at Jerez next week.”



#21 Franco Morbidelli
“It has been a really good day for us, we have been able to complete more laps than yesterday and learn more about the bike. We have done a good job and in the end we have finished with a good lap time, although that’s not the important thing at the moment. The priority is to give good feedback to the team and the Yamaha engineers, to work on everything we can to improve the bike and at the same time maximise its strong points. We played around a little with the setting today but only at a basic level to understand more about how it works. I am very happy and a little surprised by our speed and consistency but we have to focus on continuing to improve because so far this is just testing.”



#20 Fabio Quartararo
“We have been able to improve a lot on the second day of the test – as far as the lap time is concerned, by almost two seconds – and I am really happy with all the work we have done. We couldn’t get too many laps in yesterday but today every time I went out the feeling with the bike improved. With the new tyre I was always able to improve and with the used tyre I could stay constant. We have only tried some very small things with the set-up of the bike – little details like the footpegs and the front suspension. We had the last five minutes available to practice starts and the first one was a little strange because it was the first time I had tried launch control, but from the second one I felt better and better and I know we will continue to improve. I am very happy with this first test, the team have done a great job. Now I am looking forward to more at Jerez!”


RESULTS (Combined Day 1&2)
1. MAVERICK VIÑALES / Yamaha
1:30.757

2. ANDREA DOVIZIOSO / Ducati
+0.133

3. MARC MARQUEZ / Honda
+0.154

4. JACK MILLER / Ducati
+0.182

5. DANILO PETRUCCI / Ducati
+0.202


6. FRANCO MORBIDELLI / PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team
+0.217

17. FABIO QUARTARARO / PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team
+1.334

Source: SIC Racing Team

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