At the end of the Teruel Grand Prix which took place on the Motorland Aragón circuit, the Yamaha men must undoubtedly solve the mystery of an untouchable Franco Morbidelli, far ahead of the two other Iwata riders present, Maverick Viñales and Fabio Quartararo.
On the finish line, the latter two in fact showed a gap of 14 seconds on the winner which cannot be attributed entirely to the choice of tires, even if the Yamaha official had chosen a different tire from that of the Petronas SRT pilots. :
|
Pile |
Front tyre |
Rear tire |
|
Franco Morbidelli |
Medium |
Medium |
|
Maverick Vinales |
Soft |
Soft |
|
fabio quartararo |
Medium |
Medium |
During the press conference which was held at the end of the race, Franco Morbidelli hinted at an explanation linked to the new Öhlins BDB50 shock absorber made available to competitors at the start of the year, but which has only aroused general interest since the increases in performance of Suzuki and Álex Márquez (see here)...
Franco Morbidelli : “Yes, we tried the shock this weekend and it seems that we have more grip on the sidewalls, which was what we were missing last weekend. We were able to adapt the bike's settings to this different shock, and I think that was the key. Yes, we rode very well in the race after that, that is to say after doing a fantastic job setting up the bike in a very short time with this new element. »
But, at the same time, the Petronas pilot also puts forward a much less technical assertion.
“Comparing my riding style to that of Fabio is difficult this year because he has a different bike. The new Yamaha therefore has strong points and weak points, compared to my Yamaha. So for the moment, it's difficult to compare the data because the curves that you can see are very different, since the motorcycles that you are analyzing are different. So this year it's a bit more difficult to analyze the data and analyze the riding style, but we all know that Fabio is an aggressive rider and I'm a bit gentler kind of man. If we can sum it up, I would say this: He's a little more aggressive and I'm a little more laid-back."
In any case, there is no doubt that the Öhlins BDB50 shock absorber should be fitted to more and more MotoGP riders next week in Valencia…
