MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The MotoGP test riders finally got a pretty much fully dry day of running on the final day of the shakedown test at Sepang. Michele Pirro, Cal Crutchlow, Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Lorenzo Savadori, Jonas Folger, Dani Pedrosa, Stefan Bradl, and GasGas rookie Augusto Fernandez managed to get some real work done. How much more? Fernandez did 47 full laps on Tuesday, where he had managed only 34 and 26 on the two days previous.

What did we learn? Not much more than we already knew from the previous two days. The more subtle changes will only be obvious once journalists and photographers can get into pit lane and take a proper close up look at the bikes. If you are interested in seeing the times, check Peter McLaren's report from day 3 over on Crash.net.

There were still one or two interesting points to note, however. KTM rolled out another aerodynamics update, though it is not yet the full package. This included a version of the fat lower ground effect side section which the Austrian factory tried at Valencia, following the lead of Aprilia earlier in the year.

What have we learned from the first two days of the MotoGP shakedown test at Sepang so far? Well, the first thing we have learned is that it can still rain quite a lot in the tropics. The test riders and GasGas rookie Augusto Fernandez have not had a great deal of dry track time over the past couple of days.

Combine a damp track with the fact that it is test riders out there – Cal Crutchlow for Yamaha; Michele Pirro for Ducati; Lorenzo Savadori for Aprilia; Stefan Bradl for Honda; and Dani Pedrosa, Mika Kallio, and new signing Jonas Folger for KTM – alongside GasGas rookie Fernandez, and it means the times don't mean much. Fernandez gets extra track time by dint of being a rookie, compensation for the reduction of official testing time which has taken place over the last five years or so.

The rumors of former Suzuki boss Ken Kawauchi moving to Honda raised many eyebrows in the MotoGP paddock. Engineers switching factories may be commonplace for European manufacturers, but it is almost unheard of, and unthinkable for Japanese factories. As Japan's leading MotoGP journalist, Akira Nishimura his his insight into what the news that Kawauchi is moving to HRC for the 2023 season means.

Ken Kawauchi, Suzuki's long-time technical boss, will become HRC's new technical manager for the 2023 season following the Hamamatsu company's withdrawal from MotoGP. Below is my brief insight into this bombshell news.

It was January 10 when I first heard about Kawauchi-san’ joining HRC. I was chatting with a fellow European journalist by text when the subject came up. I understood it was likely to happen, because I remembered a casual exchange with Kawauchi-san during our season review interview last December.

After the interview, I stopped the recorder, and we left the interview room. Then, I joked to him, “why don’t you move to, say, KTM, after your company’s withdrawal from MotoGP? I believe they will hire you with a very high salary.”