Dani Pedrosa was once again the fastest rider on the final day of Moto 1 testing at Valencia.
The Repsol Honda rider best lap was 1.
31.
807 and he pipped team mate Casey Stoner who lead most of Wednesday’s testing session.
The two riders were also the only ones who broke the 1.
32 mark with the new 2012 spec tires that Bridgestone brought in.
Ben Spies was again third, but he had a vast improvement from Tuesday test times, shaving off almost nine tenths and getting closer to the Honda’s.
Satellite Yamaha rider Cal Crutchlow was fourth and he took off more than a second from his lap time while his new team mate Andrea Dovizioso took fifth.
Ducati and Valentino Rossi will have a massive amount of work to do this winter.
The Italian is still 1.
5 seconds of pace even with the GP0 or step 1 from the top of the timesheets, the same gap that he had throughout the entire 2011 season.
Other Ducati riders, Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera were behind him in 7th and 8th, respectively.
Alvaro Bautista who officially debuted today with Honda Gresini was 9th fastest and he managed to keep Stefan Bradl on the LCR Honda behind him.
The debuting CRT’s were still massively slow compared to the factory based bikes, between 4 to 6 seconds slower, but they too managed to improve on Day 2.
MotoGP testing for the 2012 season will resume next year at Sepang at the end of January.
Dani Pedrosa:We had another good day of testing today.
Basically we’ve been working on the engine mapping, to better manage the power of the bike, and with the rear shock.
The changes we’ve done on the bike from Brno to here have been positive and we finish the year with a good feeling.
It will be interesting to go to Sepang and continue working under very different conditions, with harder tyre compounds and a much higher track temperature.
In general, I’m leaving Valencia in a good mood, more for the improvements we’ve made than for the lap times, which are not so important for me in winter testing”.
Casey Stoner:“Everything has gone pretty well to be honest, on the first day we just needed to compare the bike to the one we tested earlier in the year.
There have been a few small improvements especially in terms of the bike working with the new 2012 tyres.
The front tyre gives us quite a lot of chatter so this is something we are trying to improve and the new bike helped with that slightly.
It’s something we’ve had since last season with the 800s is a lack of feeling and some chatter coming from the rear on the way into the corner which is something we still need to improve with the RC213V but we believe we know the direction to go in to improve this situation.
Overall it’s been a positive test and it’s the end of a long season! I’m looking forward to going home now and having some rest, enjoying time with family and friends and preparing for the arrival of our child in February, then we’ll be back in Sepang revitalised and ready for 2012″.
Ben Spies:“It’s been a long two days.
We had a lot of work to do with Jorge not being here but we’ve got through everything.
I think we got the guys working in the right direction, we’re still quite a way from Qatar and what we’ll be racing with but we’ve got a good idea of what we need to work on.
There’s a lot of potential in what we have so they’ll go back to Japan now to work on it for a couple of months and we’ll see what we have as a package next year.
The team and engineers have worked really hard for the last couple of days so a big thank you to them.
”Valentino Rossi:“These were two important days of testing because we needed to collect a lot of data for the next few months of work, which will be crucial.
The positives of this bike are certainly the engine, which I like, and the fact that it handles a bit better than the previous one.
It’s definitely more fun, in part because you can get sideways more.
The frame isn’t bad, but it needs work.
We have to improve the braking, because I need to brake harder and later, and we need to improve traction under acceleration.
Filippo has many ideas, and now we have a little time to apply them before next year’s tests.
” Karel Abraham:“During the first few laps we have solved most of the problems we had and then we tried many things and focused on the set-up of the motorcycle.
I’m quite satisfied with the result of the test, but I think I could set even better lap time.
I spent most of the time on track in the morning and then I was quite tired in the afternoon, but I’m happy with the way I ended my first season in the premier class and now I’m looking forward to winter break.
“Hector Barbera:“These have been two days of work where we didn’t look for the fastest lap time, but we were looking to learn about the many innovations that Ducati has brought us on track.
Sincere compliments to them as they did a great job.
The bike is very powerful although there is still something to fix.
We encountered a few problems but otherwise the bike is really competitive.
The engine is fun, very different from the 800cc used until Sunday, and this I think may be a point in my favor as my style of riding.
A pity that the last two hours available today we could not get on track because of a problem with the engine that I have felt on the track.
Engineers are analyzing what has happened.
We also had the opportunity to compare the new tires and also here, with some positive aspects, I think there’s still a little work to do.
The new one make the most in the first lap.
The shoulder I have injured at the end of the season gives me a little pain, but does not affect my results on the track.
I think this break will do me good to recover and be at the top for the next season!”MotoGP Valencia Test Day 2 results:1 Pedrosa D.
Repsol Honda Team 1:31.
8072 Stoner C.
Repsol Honda Team +0.
1613 Spies B.
Yamaha Factory Racing +0.
5314 Crutchlow C.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +0.
7435 Dovizioso A.
Monster Yamaha Tech3 +1.
4496 Rossi V.
Ducati Team +1.
5257 Abraham K.
Cardion AB Motoracing +1.
6268 Barbera H.
Pramac Racing Team +1.
8419 Bautista A.
San Carlo Honda Gresini +2.
00710 Bradl S.
LCR Honda MotoGP +2.
33511 Akiyoshi K.
Repsol Honda Team +2.
73912 Battaini F.
Ducati Team+ 3.
03313 Morales C.
Team Laglisse +4.
10414 Silva I.
BQR Inmotec +4.
88815 Hernandez Y.
BQR FTR +5.
47216 Sandi F.
Grillini Team +6.
873
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