During the last week, Casey Stoner with a few other test riders, did the preliminary work in Sepang for the permanent officials, who take the handlebars this Sunday on the same track, to make their return to 2018 in MotoGP. A very useful in-depth work, a significant time saver. Well, in theory. Because the Australian is a bit of a different opinion. And he expresses it with his usual frankness…
The clear assessments of Casey Stoner we were missing and the double Australian World Champion took advantage of the Sepang pre-tests to give us a reminder. Sharing work at Ducati with Pirro, the holder of the number 27 decorated in the colors of the national flag commented on the opportunity to come to Malaysia during the off-season… “ one of the conclusions that we were able to draw from these tests is that doing these tests on this type of circuit is useless ».
He explains about Motorsport : " the time it takes for the track to dry after a downpour is way too long. The work done here was much less useful than expected. Before, when we came to Sepang and it rained, it took around twenty minutes before we found dry asphalt. Today, coming here for these tests no longer makes sense ».
The track surface for the Malaysian Grand Prix was resurfaced in 2016. Pre-tests should have taken place from Wednesday to Friday, but work had to stop on Thursday due to rain. The new bitumen laid at Sepang does not seem to have taken into account the fact that Malaysia is subject to tropical showers, unlike the previous one...
