Despite adverse weather conditionsFollowing the trend of the latest tests carried out in Valencia and Jerez, the bad weather hindered yesterday's working day for the 125cc and 250cc teams.
In the morning, the sky never really cleared up, but the riders got onto the
track ready to make the best use of the hours before the forecasted rain appeared. The day has been positive however, and the teams continued adapting and setting up their bikes until 2.30 p.m. when they were forced to interrupt the session due to the rain.
The work of these days, both of the 125cc and of the 250cc teams, is mainly focussed on fine-tuning the bikes according to the riders needs, because this will be the first season in the team for most of them.
Despite not having ideal weather conditions, they made use of the time to cover as many kilometres as possible to gather the necessary experience to get to the first race under the best possible conditions. They also spend time setting up the suspensions.
Due to the rain-conditioned interruption, they will restart work today, and should there be no change in the weather conditions, they will be testing with specific rain settings.
Julian Simón (44 laps - 1'49.05): "We have learned a new track, Catalunya, with the 250cc machine. I felt comfortable from the first moment, because as I already saw in Jerez, it is a rather simple and easy-to-ride bike. Though everything takes its time. If you want to set good times you need experience, you need to know the bike well, know the lines in this new class. This is what I need and I have to continue moving on and covering kilometres.
We're obviously testing tyres, suspensions and so on, but the most important for us now is to cover as many laps as possible to get the experience I'm lacking. The assessment of the first day is good but the bad weather has hindered us from moving on. Let's hope to be able to lap a bit longer tomorrow and for better weather in Valencia."
Shuhei Aoyama (24 laps - 1'49.7): "These have been the fifth tests this year and we've had bad weather again. But well, my impressions on the bike have been good and although I haven't been able to be really fast, it hasn't been bad. We've been working on the suspensions today because we have a new chassis and the reactions are different. Let's see if we managed to improve the lap times tomorrow."
Tito Rabat (50 laps - 1'53.6): "The track was slippery this morning and the bike skidded a lot. Fortunately it went better bit by bit and we've managed to cover some laps. We've been improving our times progressively. Unfortunately we've been forced to stop four laps after lunch because it started to rain and we were not able to make use of the afternoon. However, the feelings are good and it went well this morning."
Bradley Smith (46 laps – 1'53.1): "It wasn't a bad day after all. We tested some new things in the morning, despite this being a new track for us, since everything is quite different with the new bike. The settings are different and it's like starting from zero. I think that we've made a good job today and despite having had only half a day I think that we've been able to set the bike quite the way I like it. Unfortunately we haven't been able to put on the new tyres and make a really good lap, but I'm really happy. There's nothing that worries me, despite the weather that will hopefully improve for tomorrow."
Stefan Bradl (51 laps - 1'53.6): "The tests haven't been bad today. The weather was not really good and it became even worse, but we were able to some good work this morning. The engine worked well and despite some problems with the suspension in the long right-hand corner, I'm happy. Let's hope for better weather tomorrow to be able to solve these few problems."
