In the absence of the Official Yamaha which has just carried out private tests, the Yoshimura Suzuki dominated this first day of testing in the hands of Takuya Tsuda, the test rider of the MotoGP GSX-RR.
So much so that the Italian press even wonders if Johann zarco is not going to reverse its decision not to participate in the legendary Japanese event…
Very fast since the morning despite track conditions alternating dry and wet, the red Suzuki achieved 2'09.215 in the morning, 2'08.830 in the afternoon, and 2'07.470 during night testing. A time to compare with the 2'06.516 achieved by the same machine in qualifying and the 2'06.000 from Pol Espargaro's pole position, all last year.
But there are still two days of free practice and, therefore, the possibility of greatly improving these first times.
A task, however, made a little more difficult by the absence of the Superbike pilots, in particular for the Musashi RT HARC-PRO which is currently only managed by Takumi Takahashi (winner in 2010, 2013 and 2014), Nicky Hayden et Michael van der Mark being on the way to Laguna Seca, just like Josh Brookes (Yoshimura Suzuki).
It should be noted that the European teams did not travel for these tests, with the exception of YART extension henceforth called official team. We will still notice the presence of the French Erwan Nigon on the Kawasaki Trick Star in 10th position on this first day of testing.
01- Shell Advance Yoshimura Suzuki (Suzuki) – Tsuda / Haga – 2’07.470
02- Au & Teluru Kohara RT (Honda) – Akiyoshi / Cudlin / Okubo – 2’08.881
03- Musashi RT HARC-PRO (Honda) – Takahashi – 2’09.638
04- Team Kagayama (Suzuki) – Kagayama / Kiyonari / Uramoto – 2’09.855
05- Toho Racing (Honda) – Yamaguchi / Rea – 2’09.943
06- Green Team (Kawasaki) – Watanabe / Yanagawa / Haslam – 2 '10 .106
07- FCC TSR Honda (Honda) – Watanabe / Jacobsen /
agitated – 2'10.380
08- Rosetta Motorrad39 (BMW) – Sakai / Pesek – 2’10.664
09- YART Yamaha (Yamaha) – Parkes / Nozane / Fujita – 2 '10 .989
10- EVA RT Trick Star (Kawasaki) – Izutsu / Serizawa / Nigon – 2’11.403
11- MotoMap Supply (Suzuki) – Konno / Aoki / Waters – 2’11.618
12- SatuHATI Honda Team Asia (Honda) – Nakagami / Zaidi – 2'12.652
13- Team JP Dog Fight Racing (Yamaha) – Kimura / Turner / Aitchison – 2’21.782
Combined J1 ranking excluding night session:
