Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso put in solid performances at the last day of the latest MotoGP test today in a hot and sticky Sepang as the expected rain held off.
The sweltering temperatures at the track on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur didn’t prevent the Honda men continuing to work on the performance of the latest version of the RC212V, and both will leave Malaysia reasonably happy with just one test in Qatar next month before the first GP – also in Qatar – in April, though Pedrosa acknowledged that they aren’t quite there yet.
“We put in a lot of work today and tried many things on the machine to improve our pace,” said the Spaniard. “We made some progress with the feeling from the engine, which is positive, though we didn’t really get the results we were looking for elsewhere, and some of the issues we had yesterday are still there.
“So, there’s plenty for us still to do before Qatar. The team is working really hard and we’re positive that there’s a lot more to come.”
Pedrosa also felt his position in the standings wasn’t representative of the season to come, something else he wants to address.
'All in all, I’m very confident' – Andrea Dovizioso
“Of course I can’t say that eighth is where I want to be on the timesheets at the end of this test,” he added, “so we’ll definitely look to move things forward in Qatar.”
Despite only just edging his team-mate, finishing in seventh place, Dovizioso said that the latest test had been a “big step forwards” compared to the first a few weeks ago at Sepang, and expressed optimism.
“Of course, there is still work to do to get closer to Valentino [Rossi] and Casey [Stoner], but anyway, all in all, I’m very confident.”
Rossi, on the new version of his Yamaha YZR-M1, smashed his own Sepang pole lap record by three-tenths on the final day to top the timesheets, followed by Stoner on the Ducati Desmosedici GP10.
Elsewhere, Hiroshi Aoyama continued to improve the Interwetten-Honda RC212V’s performance, finishing in ninth, just one place and 0.214s behind Pedrosa’s works machine. Mika Kallio achieved a 14th place overall on the Pramac Ducati.
For more test result breakdowns and news, head to motogp.com
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