Submitted by David Emmett on
The rain that had threatened to make the mid-season Brno MotoGP test a washout did not materialize on Monday morning, and the first part of the test took place under clear skies and bright sunshine. When the bikes took a break for lunch, it was Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo who was clearly fastest, beating Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner by nearly six tenths of a second. Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi were 3rd and 4th fastest respectively, a couple of tenths apart.
The test gave us a number of clues as to the work going on for 2011. Jorge Lorenzo is riding a 2011 prototype Yamaha M1, while Valentino Rossi - now officially confirmed as riding with Ducati next season - is testing 2010 suspension upgrades and trying to solve the grip problems he suffered yesterday. He is already over a second faster than on Sunday, so presumably they've found the problem.
If Valentino Rossi is not riding the 2011 Yamaha, Ben Spies is. Spies had two bikes in his garage - one Tech 3 machine, and one kept permanently under a cover, which when removed revealed an all-black carbon-fiber fairing, hinting at confirmation of his future in Yamaha. Yamaha Racing MD Lin Jarvis said that the team is very close to announcing their rider lineup for 2011, but that they still had a few details to work out.
The Honda garages were fullest. Dani Pedrosa had two bikes sitting at the back of the garage with the covers on, while Andrea Dovizioso had one covered bike in the garage. The plans for the Repsol Honda team were to test suspension parts in the morning, with new parts and new bikes to be tested this afternoon, if there is enough time from working on the 2010 suspension parts.
As for Ducati, there are bikes under wraps in the garages, but as Ducati has a longer development lead time than Honda and Yamaha - a result of their drastically smaller racing department - the 2011 bike is just about complete, and is not expected to be drastically different to the 2010 machine. At Suzuki, Loris Capirossi is out testing a whole host of new parts in an attempt to make the bike competitive, while Alstare Suzuki WSBK rider Sylvain Guintoli has stepped in to test for Alvaro Bautista, while the Spanish star recovers from the badly bruised back he suffered in his crash during practice.
Times as of 1pm:
Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
1 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'56.269 | ||
2 | 27 | Casey STONER | DUCATI | 1'56.844 | 0.575 | 0.575 |
3 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'56.944 | 0.675 | 0.100 |
4 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | YAMAHA | 1'57.129 | 0.860 | 0.185 |
5 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | YAMAHA | 1'57.512 | 1.243 | 0.383 |
6 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | HONDA | 1'57.691 | 1.422 | 0.179 |
7 | 65 | Loris CAPIROSSI | SUZUKI | 1'57.700 | 1.431 | 0.009 |
8 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'57.753 | 1.484 | 0.053 |
9 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'57.991 | 1.722 | 0.238 |
10 | 40 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'58.017 | 1.748 | 0.026 |
11 | 33 | Marco MELANDRI | HONDA | 1'58.070 | 1.801 | 0.053 |
12 | 58 | Marco SIMONCELLI | HONDA | 1'58.160 | 1.891 | 0.090 |
13 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARO | DUCATI | 1'58.612 | 2.343 | 0.452 |
14 | 7 | Hiroshi AOYAMA | HONDA | 1'58.830 | 2.561 | 0.218 |
15 | 36 | Mika KALLIO | DUCATI | 1'58.926 | 2.657 | 0.096 |
16 | 19 | Sylvain GUINTOLI | SUZUKI | 1'59.454 | 3.185 | 0.528 |
Comments
I think...
...that if Rossi had been doing laps a full second faster yesterday, we'd have had a much more exciting race. Maybe he's cracking the nut on the rear grip issue.
I believe that he's gonna win more races this year.
Also, I have to say that I think Ben will NOT be a total stranger to the top step of the podium next year. That boy really is good. I'm not predicting championships just yet, but he impressed me yesterday.
Haslam?
Interesting that Sylvain Guintoli was asked to ride the Suzuki and not Haslam... Wonder whether he's off to a rival manufacturer and they don't want him on the motogp bike?
Or perhaps it's because they don't want to risk him getting injured, damaging his WSBK championship chances.
Would like to know if Haslam was asked but turned it down too!
More experience less to lose
Guintoli has ridden 4 stroke motoGP bikes quite a bit and Haslam is still trying for the front. Guintoli may also be a Suzuki contract rider, as Kagayama was, and Haslam may just be contracted to Alstare.
Yep
Spot on. I am 90% certain that you are right about the contracts as well.
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MotoTheory.com - MotoGP Data & Statistics
Exactly what I was going to
Exactly what I was going to say. but i cant remember, did Guintoli spend 2 or 3 years in MotoGP? I remember he was with Pramac Ducati and Tech3 Yamaha, but i cant remember if it was just a year with each or 1 year with one team and 2 years with the other team.
2 Years
Just 2007 and 2008.
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MotoTheory.com - MotoGP Data & Statistics
2 Years
'07 with Tech 3 and '08 with Pramac. More recent experience on both the stones and with the brakes. And like the others said, the suzuki contract would make a lot of sense.