“We're at a good stage right now”There was a very positive vibe in the Team Roberts camp today after Kenny Jnr swapped machines with Carlos Checa and was really pleased with the feedback from Checa's LCR, as well as getting pointers to where the KR212V could be improved
- particularly on the exit of the super-fast Turn 3 where is was unstable and hard to ride.
Following the swap Kenny Jnr was able to improve his time and felt that if they had put in the more high performance race Michelin tyres they could have dipped into the high 2m 02s.
"For sure today we learned a tremendous amount today. I've got to thank Honda because they promised me at the last race at Valencia last year that they'd let me ride one of their bikes here - because it was gonna be our first test. We did it at about one o'clock today and so thanks to Carlos Checa and his guys. The problem was that in some of the fast stuff I'd been really fighting our bike and blistering my hands, but I'd just kinda thought it was either me or the line. But Carlos's bike was much more stable coming out of turn three and that kinda kicked stuff off for us to work in that direction. I was fighting it non-stop and my corner speed through there wasn't very good”, said the American. “ So for the last hour we made some big improvements and for here darn-near fixed it completely. At first, we didn't really know how to fix it, we thought it was coming from the link and the shock. But to cut a long story short, it seems like we've made a big improvement. Laptime-wise, we weren't able to do much tyre testing for Michelin, but we did a low 2m 03 on race tyres but I'm sure I could have been somewhere in the 2m 02s if we'd worked at it. So we're at a good stage right now."
The Honda teams now move on to the superb Phillip Island circuit in Victoria, Australia for the second MotoGP test of the year on January 30, 31 and February 1.
Honda Motor Sport
