Test Progress for FPR at Brno
Foggy PETRONAS Racing riders Steve Martin and Craig Jones
made solid progress on the second day of a three-day test
at the Czech Republic circuit of Brno, despite torrential
rain hampering track time for much of the afternoon.
Both riders were able to make strides forward with engine
development and tyre evaluation, as well as chassis set-up
of their PETRONAS FP1s, in preparation for the Brno round
of the Superbike World Championship on 23 July.
Craig Jones was immediately on his pace from the first day
of the test yesterday and worked comprehensively through his
set-up and tyre testing programme. And although the young
Brit experienced niggling electrical difficulties during the
morning, he was able to knock another second off his lap time
to finish the day with a time of 2:05.22.
Team-mate Steve Martin spent much of his track time evaluating
new engine development parts and fine tuning his FP1’s
set-up for the undulating Brno circuit. The experienced Australian
rider continued to make steady progress throughout the day,
also reducing his lap time by a second on yesterday and therefore
lapping an impressive two seconds quicker than his best race
lap time from 2005.
Steve commented, “I’m pretty
happy with the day and everything ran smoothly. My lap times
are slowly improving as we’ve adjusted the bike settings,
but there’s still more to come tomorrow as I’m
not yet 100% happy with the handling, but we have a good direction
to go in. I hope to be able to use a qualifier tomorrow as
well. The tyres are a definite improvement on last year so
Pirelli have been doing a great job. I’ve been getting
a good feel for the engine developments that we’ve been
testing, but there’s still more work to be done in that
area, which we’ll continue tomorrow.”
Craig said, “I went pretty well this
morning and got straight on to my times from yesterday. A
few niggling electrical issues hampered my progress a bit,
but we got those sorted just before lunch. Unfortunately it
then rained over the lunch hour and into the afternoon, so
that stopped play for most of the afternoon and meant we had
to change the focus of the test. A dry line started to appear
towards the end of the day, and although the track was still
quite slippery and greasy, we tested what we could at that
pace and I’m happy with how it’s all going.”
The three day Brno test, which concludes tomorrow, has been
organised by the sole WSBK tyre supplier, Pirelli. It is being
attended by all the tyre development teams representing each
World Superbike manufacturer, along with most of the top riders
in the championship, apart from Troy Corser, who had to remain
at home after contracting chicken pox.
Overall times from today (race tyres unless otherwise
stated)
1. Bayliss (Ducati) 2:00.8 (qual), 2:01.6
2. Walker (Kawasaki) 2:02.1
3. Muggeridge (Honda) 2:02.2
4. Lanzi (Ducati) 2:02.5
5. Toseland (Honda) 2:02.5
6. Haga (Yamaha) 2:02.9
7. Pitt (Yamaha) 2:02.9
8. Nieto (Kawasaki) 2:03.0
9. Martin (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 2:03.7
10. Kagayama (Suzuki) 2:04.0
11. Foret (Suzuki) 2:04.4
12. Jones (Foggy PETRONAS Racing) 2:05.22
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