KTM had a hectic start to the season at Sepang, a track which hosted a MotoGP field coming out of its winter break for three days of testing. The Austrians noted with satisfaction that they were still making progress but were also frightened to see their first pilot Pol Espargaro suffer an impressive fall at 250 km/h during the second day. An accident which left Bradley Smith alone in charge of the development work, once again discreet against the clock...
Last year, the Englishman had barely saved his starting place on the RC16 against the in-house test driver Mika Kallio, waking up during the last Grand Prix of the calendar. A saving start that we did not detect in Malaysia where the Briton gave the impression of being lethargic. In total, he is 19th combined time, 1.6 seconds behind Jorge Lorenzo who set a new Malaysian circuit record on his Ducati. What to worry about?
Nay. Bradley Smith explain : " Pol was injured on the second day, so I found myself alone with a very busy day. I wasn't really able to get a time, because I was more focused on working on development. On top of that, the track conditions were not necessarily easy. But I'm happy with these three days, we learned a lot and the rhythm quickly returned ».
Of which act. As for the work accomplished, he specified: “ overall I think we covered our entire program and did a good job. We had a bunch of new things to test, the new fairing was one of them. We tried to gather as much information as possible on its subject. This is just the first prototype. We now need to analyze the data more closely. Depending on what, we will decide if we keep it ».
Next up, Thailand and a Buriram circuit which will be a big novelty for all of MotoGP.
