Final day of testing at SepangOn the final day of the second Sepang test of 2007, the teams present since Monday at the Malaysian circuit rounded off their week of fine tuning their new 800cc machines ahead of next month's season curtain-raiser.
In a repeat of yesterday's
results, Colin Edwards was once again the fastest rider at Sepang today, in blistering form on the Yamaha M1. The factory team rider clocked a lap of 2'00''248, a time under the 990cc pole position record. He cut over a second off his fastest lap from yesterday.
Once again, Edwards was closely followed by team-mate and five time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi. The Italian joined the Texan Tornado as the only riders to go round in under 2'01, with both undertaking a race simulation on the 800cc Yamaha.
Team Director Davide Brivio yesterday stated that today's extended run was intended to see if small changes made over the previous two sessions would be crucial to race performance, and perhaps has his answer after a combined 89 laps from his riders.
Once again putting in the most laps of the seven riders in Malaysia, Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet also managed to cut his times from day two. The Frenchman showed no ill-effects from his minor crash suffered yesterday, and also performed a race simulation as part of his 63 lap marathon on the Ninja ZX-RR800. Team-mate Olivier Jacque also made improvements as part of a positive three days for the continental duo.
The Yamaha Tech3 team decided against an extended run, with both Makoto Tamada and Sylvain Guintoli putting in 35 laps apiece. They continue to work hard with their tyre development as the only team using Dunlop rubber this season.
The only Ilmor team rider at this week's test, Andrew Pitt, rounded off what may be his last solo outing before the expected return of team-mate Jeremy McWilliams. The Australian established his first task this week as finding a base for the bike.
All four teams will join the remainder of the MotoGP grid next week for the Official Test in Qatar.
MotoGP Sepang test – Day three – Unofficial times :
Colin Edwards – Yamaha Racing – 2'00''248 – 46 laps
Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Racing – 2'00''793 – 43 laps
Randy de Puniet – Kawasaki Racing – 2'02''071 – 63 laps
Olivier Jacque – Kawasaki Racing – 2'02''607 – 55 laps
Makoto Tamada – Yamaha Tech3 – 2'03''380 – 35 laps
Sylvain Guintoli – Yamaha Tech3 – 2'04''636 – 35 laps
Andrew Pitt – Ilmor GP – 2'07''373
DORNA / CAPSIS International
