Wednesday saw some MotoGP teams join an expanded World Superbike field at Jerez for the first day of combined testing, and the first day with official timing. With the weather much improved, it was a busy day with teams spending a lot of time on track.
At the end of the day, the Ducatis led the way in MotoGP, Hector Barbera and Loris Baz putting the Avintia team on top, ahead of the Aspar Team's Alvaro Bautista. Scott Redding ended up as fourth fastest, a thousandth of a second quicker than Aleix Espargaro on the Aprilia.
Among the World Superbike riders, it was Jonathan Rea stamping his authority on the class, nearly seven tenths quicker than his main rival from 2016 Chaz Davies. Most impressive of all was that the time Rea set on his Kawasaki ZX-10R World Superbike machine was just over a tenths of a second slower than Hector Barbera's time on the Ducati GP16 MotoGP machine, and the second fastest time of the day. Even more impressive was the fact that Rea set his time on a used race tire from October, rather than a new qualifier or experimental tire.
There was plenty for the MotoGP teams to test at Jerez. All of the Ducati riders bar Danilo Petrucci and Michele Pirro on the GP17 bikes were riding without winglets, ready for 2017. Ducati were sticking to their program of testing the GP17 with the wings to continue their evaluation of the changes to the chassis. The are expected to roll out a wingless version of the GP17 at the Sepang test for the first time.
Though the Repsol Honda team was absent, evaluation continued on the new big bang motor for the RC213V. Jack Miller got his hands on the engine for the first time, while test rider Hiroshi Aoyama used the old engine.
There were some notable absentees. Alex Rins could not join his new Suzuki teammate Andrea Iannone as he is still recovering from fracturing the T8 and T12 vertebrae in a testing crash at Valencia. Pol Espargaro was still banned from testing the KTM by Yamaha, leaving the test work to Mika Kallio and Bradley Smith. Worth noting was the fact that Kallio was half a second quicker than Smith on Wednesday.
The factory Yamaha and Tech 3 riders were also absent, busy testing out in a very private test at Sepang. There has been no news from there, the media having been banned from attending the test. The only communication has been a post by Maverick Viñales on his Instagram account, declaring him "very happy".
Official times from Wednesday:
| MotoGP | ||||||
| Pos | No | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Prev |
| 1 | 8 | Héctor Barberá | Ducati GP16 | 1:39.614 | ||
| 2 | 76 | Loris Baz | Ducati GP15 | 1:39.806 | 0.192 | 0.192 |
| 3 | 19 | Álvaro Bautista | Ducati GP16 | 1:39.862 | 0.248 | 0.056 |
| 4 | 45 | Scott Redding | Ducati GP16 | 1:40.085 | 0.471 | 0.223 |
| 5 | 41 | Aleix Espargaró | Aprilia RS-GP | 1:40.086 | 0.472 | 0.001 |
| 6 | 51 | Michele Pirro | Ducati GP17 | 1:40.092 | 0.478 | 0.006 |
| 7 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki GSX-RR | 1:40.149 | 0.535 | 0.057 |
| 8 | 43 | Jack Miller | Honda RC213V | 1:40.340 | 0.726 | 0.191 |
| 9 | 9 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati GP17 | 1:40.432 | 0.818 | 0.092 |
| 10 | 17 | Karel Abraham | Ducati GP15 | 1:40.484 | 0.870 | 0.052 |
| 11 | 36 | Mika Kallio | KTM RC16 | 1:41.889 | 2.275 | 1.405 |
| 12 | 12 | Takuya Tsuda | Suzuki GSX-RR | 1:42.003 | 2.389 | 0.114 |
| 13 | 38 | Bradley Smith | KTM RC16 | 1:42.362 | 2.748 | 0.359 |
| 14 | 72 | Hiroshi Aoyama | Honda RC213V | 1:42.531 | 2.917 | 0.169 |
| 15 | 22 | Sam Lowes | Aprilia RS-GP | 1:43.021 | 3.407 | 0.490 |
| WorldSBK | ||||||
| Pos | No | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Prev |
| 1 | 1 | Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki ZX-10R | 1:39.739 | ||
| 2 | 7 | Chaz Davies | Ducati Panigale R | 1:40.409 | 0.670 | 0.670 |
| 3 | 66 | Tom Sykes | Kawasaki ZX-10R | 1:40.611 | 0.872 | 0.202 |
| 4 | 122 | Alex Lowes | Yamaha YZF-R1 | 1:40.985 | 1.246 | 0.374 |
| 5 | 32 | Lorenzo Savadori | Aprilia RSV4 RF | 1:41.048 | 1.309 | 0.063 |
| 6 | 33 | Marco Melandri | Ducati Panigale R | 1:41.288 | 1.549 | 0.240 |
| 7 | 2 | Leon Camier | MV Agusta F4 | 1:41.486 | 1.747 | 0.198 |
| 8 | 50 | Eugene Laverty | Aprilia RSV4 RF | 1:41.692 | 1.953 | 0.206 |
| 9 | 60 | Michael Vd Mark | Yamaha YZF-R1 | 1:41.830 | 2.091 | 0.138 |
Comments
ktm
would the fact that micka being .5 faster than brad be because brad has alot of ajusting to do with the chassiss of ktm and micka is well accustomed to it?
In reply to ktm by leprechaun
good question
and I'm not sure if brad is fully healed yet. Still a very big gap to the top and in reality the top were not even there (Yam, Honda, Duc).
Question for David with regards to Miller. I think you said at the last test he now has the 2016 chassis and his time suggests he was happy with it. For 2017 what can a person in Jack's position expect in terms of chassis upgrades from Honda - or has he effectively got it now?
Ducati Wings
I will be surprised if Ducati don't show up at Sepang with some kind of concealed wings on their bikes. There is step by step development and there is wasting precious test time and I don't think they would still be using the wings if they didn't have a way of keeping the downforce for 2017.
WSBK Calendar
Does ANYONE have a calaendar for the 2017 WSBK Championship ?
Lack of speed partly down to rear grip issues
KTM riders mentioned today of more rear grip problems. That the colder than usual conditions made things worse and that they needed to figure out a way improving their speed in this climate as other teams/riders seem less effected. So no doubt this will be a key area for Day 2, especially as the final day looks like it's going to be wet all day.