The first day of MotoGP private testing was not really spoiled by the weather (see here) and some members of the teams who will ride during the official tests even saw their plane diverted to Penang, 80 kilometers from Sepang. Guy Coulon could tell you about it…
This Thursday, the morning started again in the wet despite the sun which took its time to gradually dry the track of the Malaysian circuit.
Meanwhile, the Suzuki garage saw Sylvain Guintoli brief Michael Dunlop, Josh Waters et Toni Elias on orders for the GSX-RR from 10:00 a.m.
Half an hour later, Mika Kallio (KTM) and Matthew Baiocco (Aprilia) take to the track on wet tires, accompanied by some Yamaha and Suzuki riders from the All Japan championship.
The other pilots, including Casey Stoner, wait a little longer to start on slicks but, ultimately, they will have to do it with still patches of humidity on the track until midday.
At 16:45 p.m., a few drops of rain reappeared and unfortunately intensified, thus reducing this second day of testing to around 5 hours in the dry.
Thanks to our colleague Peter McLaren present on site for the site crash.net, we were nevertheless able to learn about interesting things.
First of all, Hiroshi Aoyama tried a new fairing on his Honda RC213V. This seems to present a mix between the philosophy adopted on the Aprilia RS-GP, two fins linked together by a vertical plane, and that of Ducati with its hollowed out vertical elements.
We know that the Tokyo bike never needed big wings this year, Dani Pedrosa even using a smaller version than that of Marc Marquez, but, obviously, nothing is being neglected on the Honda side.
We will also notice that, forever for aerodynamic reasons, the saddle backrest seems to have been extended and now ends in a pronounced bevel...
Peter Mc Laren also saw a modified version of the new Yamaha fairing tested by Katsuyuki Nakasuga (on the right in his photo)…
A novelty also seems to have been tried by Casey Stoner at Ducati.
If Casey Stoner made a sensational entrance yesterday aboard a GP17 (see here), we can see on this document (still taken by Peter Mc Laren) that he drove today with a chassis different from the GP17, and also different from that of the GP18 prototype seen during the Valencia tests (see here).
In fact, we don't see much, except that a new attachment has appeared under the swingarm axle and the photo posted by Casey Stoner himself, riding a GP17, may suggest that it is perhaps only an evolution of the GP17. Or not (piece of white saddle in the photo below)…
What is it for ? The answer will probably come within a few hours...
Finally, this was also the opportunity to observe in detail the tormented reservoir of the Suzuki GSX-RR equipped with its golden thermal protection, already glimpsed on several occasions...
Unofficial chronos published by GPone:
Casey Stoner (Ducati): 2'01.4
Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda): 2'02.3
Mika Kallio (Ktm): 2'02.6
Stefan Bradl (Honda): 2’02”9
Matteo Baiocco (Aprilia): 2'04.5
