“We'll be OK in Jerez”The final day of the last pre-season MotoGP test at the Losail circuit, Qatar was a crucial day for many of the teams present.
With just 21 days to go before the opening race of the 18-round world championship series, hosted by the same Losail
circuit, Honda teams, technicians and riders worked hard to complete the development programme set out by HRC.
The majority of teams head back to Europe to prepare for the final pre-season, at Jerez, Spain on February 23-25 with sufficient technical data to establish good base lines for overall machine set up.
Team Roberts took a step forward on the final day at Qatar. Team rider Kenny Roberts Jnr had been hampered by front end problems that caused major tyre wear. Working on weight transfer and suspension modifications the team have almost eradicated the problem and go into the Jerez test confident they will complete their pre-season testing schedule,
Kenny Roberts Jnr, KR212V: 1m 57.408s
“There was quite a lot of wind and we struggled at times with the work we were trying to do on the bike. We had been tearing up a lot of front tyre in the corners so we worked on weight transfer and the suspension and it was a lot better today.
We tested some tyres for Michelin and we ended the day running a race simulation on the race tyres we got the most out of on Tuesdays good laps. The time wasn't too bad lap times could have been a couple of tenths faster but the sun was going down and it was difficult to se where the edge of the track was. One thing for sure, we are closer to the front at this stage than last year. We'll be OK in Jerez.”
Honda Motor Sport
