2012 Mugello MotoGP Test Times: Lorenzo Leads Hondas

By David Emmett | Mon, 16/07/2012 - 16:26

Jorge Lorenzo was the fastest man of the day at the post-race test at Mugello, continuing where he left off on Sunday. Lorenzo ended just ahead of the Repsol Hondas of Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner, both men having set their fastest time on the 2012 version of the RC213V, rather than the new version which Honda had brought. Pedrosa only managed three laps on the new bike before a gearchange mistake caused him to crash in the final corner, putting an end to further testing on the bike. Nicky Hayden was 4th quickest, just three tenths behind Lorenzo, and fractionally faster than Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso, while Stefan Bradl ended the day 7th quickest.

Valentino Rossi ended the session in 10th, but his testing day was disrupted when an electronics fault on the new engine caused him to crash at Correntaio. That meant Rossi lost half a day on the revised engine, while engineers tried to track down the cause of the mistake. The changes to the weight distribution, relocating the fuel pod and electronics package, had made a difference, according to the Italian.

Results:

Pos Rider Bike Time Diff Prev.
1 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1:47.435    
2 Dani Pedrosa Honda 1:47.549 0.114 0.114
3 Casey Stoner Honda 1:47.551 0.116 0.002
4 Nicky Hayden Ducati 1:47.745 0.310 0.194
5 Cal Crutchlow Yamaha 1:47.750 0.315 0.005
6 Andrea Dovizioso Yamaha 1:47.775 0.340 0.025
7 Stefan Bradl Honda 1:48.060 0.625 0.285
8 Hector Barbera Ducati 1:48.084 0.649 0.024
9 Alvaro Bautista Honda 1:48.530 1.095 0.446
10 Valentino Rossi Ducati 1:48.565 1.130 0.035
11 Aleix Espargaro Aprilia ART 1:49.547 2.112 0.982
12 Yonny Hernandez FTR Kawasaki 1:50.211 2.776 0.664
13 Randy de Puniet Aprilia ART 1:50.516 3.081 0.305
14 Michele Pirro FTR Honda 1:50.934 3.499 0.418
15 Franco Battaini Ducati Test 1:51.273 3.838 0.339
16 Colin Edwards Various 1:51.997 4.562 0.724
17 Ivan Silva FTR Kawasaki 1:52.019 4.584 0.022

 

2012
MotoGP
Mugello, Italy
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Comments

Rossi won't be testing anymore in the next few days, Battaini and Petrucci doin' the honours. Is this accurate? And, if so... any signs of change?

Sorry, just desperate to see "the grand finale" of this year's silliest season... uff...

Whoever felt 10th was newsworthy ? 4th ? I give Nick the boot more often than not,but I have to give him his due,he's a man I would want in my swat team.
Why is 10th mentioned. 10th and Rossi are synonymous within Ducati and declining.
Give Petrucci that bike. His current one is only 50km/hr off pace.
Audi/VW/Ducati can have him for 1/100th price and a few good returns in terms of results.
Hell. He and Casey had a face to face recently for many right reasons.
Nothing better to do post retirement Casey in GP. Take this kid under your wing.
Rossi is a Ducati man's source of angst as he has been since mid 2010.
Rossi ? Give him back to Yamaha. I want to see him fight Lorenzo !!!
Simple deal. Results based contract. Something like 1 million Euro per win and nothing else other than full factory support in terms of kit.

Oh, we should scrap race results and from here on judge our riders on their test days and qualifying times? Please.

I'd be curious to see if everyone was running the same compound tire. Everyone on soft tires.....or hard race tires. Nicky's improvement gives me hope unless he was running soft tires while everyone else was on the hard compound.

ECU plug and play. I for one am not buying it . Electronic failure crashes a full days testing on one bike ? Please.
How co-incidental. Both bikes. Simultaneous ECU blowouts on two seperate pieces of kit.
Testing is the general idea come race day @indesque.
When last did you see a supreme test/qualifying weekend come to naught on race day? Testing is a race in its own believe it or not.
The most recent example is of course Mugello 2012 and Lorenzo. Go figure !
Testing.....Riders too.

You might be over simplifying things there without knowing more specifics of the failure.
1st. The statement only says that there was an electronics failure on the new engine. We don't know if that electronics failure and resulting crash caused something to be damaged in a way that they could not continue the test.
2nd. There's nowhere that says there were two bikes available to both riders. Quite likely they only had one updated bike per rider to test. If there was a catastrophic failure that lunched the new engine then you have nothing to test. Game over.

HRC only had one of the new bike for each rider so I wouldn't imagine Ducati would have everything in redundancy of the updated engines and components.

It's not actually a NEW engine, it's the same block with revised parts isn't it? Unless I'm missing something here..

I can remember being at Daytona where the Sukukia / Ducati / Kawasaki / Honda or whatever works bike, more than once, suffered an "electrical problem". In the paddock standing near the garage as the "lights out" machine arrived, it appeared to me as though the problem was related to the electricity leaking out of the engine through the large hole in the cases that was ventilated by the broken connecting rod.

it (not refering to you particularly PB) that some armchair critics are suggesting that Rossi put in an ordinary/below expectations performance at Mugello, but Crutchow, behind him for 13 laps, said 'anyone who thinks Rossi is done are wrong, he was awesome.'

I'm thinking he (Crutchlow) is probably in the best position to have an informed opinion.

depth perception. Cal was in position on track and in negotiations with Val's employer to have depth perception on how the Ducati looks from behind.

Hard to believe that the "new" engine parts are not ready after the months of reading about them being developed. Honda brings next years BIKE, Ducati has not yet brought the new soul for the GP-12++ it seems.

"Electronics Problems"/hole in crankcase may have also kept Spies away from the bike if the factory has decided he is not going to be on the bike next year. Hope he gets better 'electrolytes' and his 'case' fixed soon.

He qualified on the 1st row at Mugello without towing anyone (worth mentioning!), he's generally as fast as the factory riders with the bike version from November 2011.

He has been asking to at least test the GP12 but all he got was a no. It's not like if the bike was sorted and they would not benefit from another opinion.

So they have Battaini testing 3 extra days just to generate data but another GP rider lapping 3 seconds faster would be no use?

Very solid performance at Mugello from both factory boys, they have never been so close (1s!) from a dry podium, still the GP12 is not that much better than the GP0 satellite version.

Couldn't agree more (unless of course they are afraid Barbera would say "That's not any better than mine").

I would test with Rossi as much as I can, then Nick and if not those two Barbera. I have nothing against Battaini who is a serious and professional test driver .... but I storngly believe, as you do, that a MotoGP racer can provide more educated feedback.

If he could test the current GP12 (as the bike ridden by the factory boys, not next year's bike), that could be a very valuable input for Ducati.

He is one of only 2 riders racing the 2012 GP0 (Vale and Nicky barely thrown a leg around it for 1 test) and he's the only one as fast as the factory guys.

That would make it easy for him to pinpoint what is an improvement and what is not on the GP12 compared to his ride. And that could give a clearer direction to Ducati which is currently racing a "90% new" bike merely as fast as the old one.

Some of us still putter around on Cagivas you know ... and do bear in mind it was really Cagiva, its owner and its designer, that brought the world the 916 and Ducati's success in World Superbike when Cagiva owned Ducati. Cagiva continues as MV Agusta today and still builds amazing bikes, though the management admittedly leaves a lot to be desired.