Kalex Engineering has issued a press release which corroborates and completes the information that we communicated to you on the occasion of the first ride of the German motorcycle equipped with a Triumph engine (see here).
The latter took place on the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, with Jesko Raffin as test driver and Michael Ferger as crew chief of the newly formed test team. He has worked more or less every year with Raffin since the Swiss began his career.
For Kalex, who was using an intermediate machine, the very first appearance on the track was a success, even if the test ended prematurely after only one day. Initial plans were to test for three days at the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana, but a change in weather overnight from Monday to Tuesday forced Alexander Baumgärtel and Klaus Hirsekorn to revise their plans. Due to continued heavy rains and temperatures that were far too low, it did not make sense to continue their tasks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Alexander Baumgärtel (CEO / Chief Designer Kalex): “Overall, we are very happy with how things went during our first deployment with the 2019 bike. It was, so to speak, a “zero-problem” deployment. ". Additionally, we were lucky with the weather on Monday as conditions were very good for most of the day. Unfortunately, the remaining two days fell through. Other than that, Jesko Raffin did a good job. He made no mistakes and he also convinced with extremely valuable statements. After a somewhat brutal return from the winter break, we started our program with the current bike which is equipped with an “end of life” engine, and which has much less power. The aim of this exercise with two reference runs was to give Jesko the feeling of a racing bike after his four month break. Sure, he followed his training regimen during the winter months, but he never rode a motorcycle on the road. But from the third run we focused exclusively on the Triumph-equipped bike. Jesko was immediately enthusiastic. After just five rounds, his comment was: “The bike behaves like a Kalex”. It was a huge relief for us. This is what we have worked for, and this has always been our goal, at least when it comes to confidence and front end feeling. For this test we only used standard parts regarding the engine, electronics and clutch, but in the end we managed to clock a 1'36.6 with Jesko. This is definitely a good benchmark time for us. We are therefore very satisfied with our first deployment. First impressions of the driver are mostly positive and there have been absolutely no problems. Of course, it would have been very useful to accumulate more laps and kilometers, but for a start, it was a very good start to the testing program with this bike. We have already reached a level that we only expected in the second or third deployment with standard components. The rider immediately felt good with the chassis. This is why it is crazy to think about a future test at the moment. Regarding this, we have to wait until we have the ECU for this engine. »
For comparison with the 1'36.6 announced, the best time of the day was achieved by Iker Lecuona in 1'35.3 and the circuit record belongs to Johann Zarco in 1'34.879.
Photo credit: ©[2018] KALEX Engineering GmbH
