If the weather was particularly mild with the three races last Sunday in Austria, it quickly brought back the good memories of the teams by flooding the paddock on Sunday at the end of the afternoon, then effectively shortening the training sessions. official Moto2 and Moto3 tests for this single day of testing, Monday early in the afternoon.
Participating in these tests were the teams Moto2 Marc VDS, Federal Oil Gresini, Forward Racing, Tech 3 Racing, AGR, Tasca, Petronas, Speed Up, Italtrans, SAG, Dynavolt GP Intact and CarXpert Interwetten, as well as the teams Moto3 Estrella Galicia 0,0, Sky Racing Team VR46, Peugeot MC Saxoprint, Red Bull KTM Ajo, RBA Racing Team, Gresini Racing Moto3 and Pull&Bear Aspar Mahindra.
In Moto2, Sam Lowes, still bruised from his multiple falls, tried new Öhlins suspensions already tested by the drivers of the marc VDS team while the Tech3 team used a Kalex equipped with KYB suspensions to make comparisons with their own Mistral M610. We know that the French team is suffering from the disaffection of the Top Guns in the category due to the current Kalexmania which reigns there and would like to quantify, for equal drivers, the difference, if there is a difference. In this case, it was Xavi Virgo who made this comparison.
At Dynavolt Intact GP, we tested Nissin brakes in place of the usual Brembo ones.
In the CarXpert Interwetten team, Dominique Aegerter broke an engine before returning home to prepare for his signing which could be announced in Brno.
Johann Zarco did not take part in the test.
New, softer prototype tires were available to the drivers.
In Moto3, the big absentee was of course Romano Fenati, which did not prevent the Sky VR46 team from riding all day with Nicolò Bulega and Andrea Migno, including in the rain, to increase their confidence in these conditions. Nicolò Bulega had a minor fall in the rain.
Ktm did not have anything major new to test and it was therefore from Honda that we could note a new fairing and several chassis parts to test while the Mahindra engines benefited from an update considered positive .
Mahindra had also brought a new swingarm but it could not be tested due to weather conditions.
Photo : Robin Mulhauser
