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MotoGP
JiR Team Scot pleased with final day’s work in Sepang
Today was the third and final day of the first test of 2008, in preparation for the up-coming MotoGP season. JiR Team Scot rider Andrea Dovizioso secured the 7th fastest time of the day with a best lap-time of 2m 01.447 during another very intense day of work.
Dovi spent his time devouring the miles and the Michelin tyres in a bid to get maximum feedback and feeling from his four-cylinder RC212V Honda motorcycle, which is proving to be a potent package for the season ahead.
Today was spent testing a number of different tyres from Michelin, in a range of compounds, profiles and dimentions – evaluation work, which is vital if the 21-year-old Italian is to gain the maximum potential from his new 800cc MotoGP bike.
Andrea was also able to do a long run race simulation in the afternoon, which was the culmination of all the work completed so far in the last three days. During the simulation, Andrea put in some good consistent lap times. The team now fly to Australia for more testing between 30th January and 1st February.
Luca Montiron – JiR Team Scot Director
“At the end of the first session of 2008 we can say it’s been very positive for the team and our whole work schedule been successfully completed. The whole team has displayed a synergy with Honda, HRC and Michelin technicians and this gives us a lot of satisfaction. Thanks to all our hard work we were able to run very fast and consistent in our race simulation. We will now continue this good way of working together and we look forward to the Australian test next week where we are optimistic that we will move further forward with the development of the bike that we started here in Sepang this week.”
Andrea Dovizioso – Rider, JiR Team Scot MotoGP (Time 7th: 2’ 01.447”)
“We ended the three-day test at Sepang doing a race simulation which was the logical way of finishing all the hard work we’ve been doing over the last week. Before the run we did some small modifications, which gave to the bike improved handling after experiencing vibrations from rear of the bike yesterday. It was good to make this improvement. At the very end of the day I tried once more a qualifying tyre, which for the moment I’m not able to use at the maximum.
I also tried two 16-inch rear race tyres from Michelin. Looking at our pace in the simulation compared to last year’s race, you can see that we are not going slow, so that gives me so much hope! For this reason I am hungry to improve the bike still further at Phillip Island and find that elusive perfect set-up for the bike!”
Gianni Berti - Technical Coordinator, JiR Team Scot
“The race simulation gave us the perfect chance to understand better how this new bike will behave in race conditions, especially when we have to deal with a loss of grip in hot conditions like these, where you can have around 50 degrees of ground temperature. Despite this, Andrea was able to maintain a consistent rhythm and this fact is our strongest point in starting to move further forward at the next test. One thing we do need to improve is our use of the qualifying tyres. We need to go step-by-step to learn how to make the maximum effort on these soft compounds. Andrea was able to better his time by six-tenths of a second though, so the next step in Australia will be to push harder in this direction.”
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