The first official MotoGP Test of the year started yesterday in Malaysia with the 17 riders involved in the development of the new 2010 prototypes. Following a two month winter layoff the MotoGP World Championship riders returned to action at the 5.548km Sepang circuit for the two days of testing putting their new bikes through their paces with Rossi on the top of the timesheets with a best lap time of 2’00.925.
On Thursday the Malaysian track opened for testing at 09.00 and continued through a warm humid day until rain showers fell at 16.30 ending the session 30 minutes early. Today’s air temperature reached 31°C but once again the typical tropical rain affected the last day of testing since early morning.
The LCR Honda MotoGP racer Randy De Puniet made his debut aboard the new RCV and got back on track in preparation for the forthcoming season. The Frenchman completed 62 laps on Thursday working with his technicians to improve the chassis and the suspension settings of his Honda machinery. He was on a long run when the rain came but today’s he has been back to his set up work (48 laps) trying several adjustments to make a step up in his machine performance. De Puniet posted his best lap time of 2’03.043 riding his Honda to the 13th position and will return to the Malaysian track at the end of February for further pre-season testing.
De Puniet: “The first outing on the new bike has been a bit tough for us. The bike looks good but after few laps I felt that the feeling was quite nervous. So we have worked a lot on the set up especially on chassis regulations and suspension settings. After that I could ride with much confidence and we have started a long run gaining a god pace on hard tyres. This morning we have been trying several adjustments... some were good but much work has yet to be done. We rode another long run today (about 17 laps) and, at the end of the day, I went out on soft tyre but the surface temperature was not as good as I expected. I know that the 13th position is not brilliant but we did not look for the ultimate laps time. We gathered important data for the next test session to have clear ideas about the direction we have to follow”.
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