Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP End Successful Misano MotoGP Test on Top

15-09-2020

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP End Successful Misano MotoGP Test on Top

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales once again showed superb speed at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli today. He finished the IRTA Misano MotoGP Official Test solidly in 1st place, with a 0.217s advantage. Valentino Rossi spent the day testing various items to improve the bike‘s rideability. He finished the day in 17th position.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team returned to the scene of last weekend’s San Marino GP, the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, for an official IRTA Test. With the Gran Premio dell’Emilia Romagna e della Riviera di Rimini coming up this weekend at the same track, Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi made sure to use all the available time to collect as much data as possible. They secured 1st and 17th place respectively.

Today’s track action was divided into two sessions. Session 1 was held from 9:30-13:00 and Session 2 took place from 14:00-18:00.

With engine and fairing development frozen for next year as a cost cutting measure in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the team focused on all other parts of the YZR-M1.

Viñales dedicated his time to trying the medium rear tyre, a chassis, a new rear finger brake, and the new swing-arm options. He completed 47 laps in the morning, taking seventh place and decided to turn up the heat in the afternoon.

Though the Spaniard suffered a crash in Turn 6 due to cold tyres about an hour before the end of Session 2, he was quickly back on his feet and able to continue the testing programme. The Misano all-time lap record holder made clear that this small setback didn’t discourage him in the slightest. He was lying in fifth position when he arrived back in the box after the incident but set the fastest time of the day on his next run, with a little less than 45 minutes to go. He clocked a 1’31.532s for first, 0.271s ahead of his fastest rival. Throughout Session 2 he completed 45 laps for a 92 laps total.

Rossi spent the available track time testing a new muffler that was fitted to both his YZR-M1s, as well as some other items. His sole purpose for today’s sessions was to find some extra top-end speed and improve rideability.

Not bothered at all by setting a time, The Doctor rode a total of 90 laps to make a detailed evaluation of which of the testing items are to his liking and could aid his 2020 championship challenge. Despite the long day, he showed no signs of fatigue. He set a 1’32.946s on his penultimate lap in the afternoon, matching his fastest time from the morning on lap 35 of Session 1. As a result, he finished the test in 17th place, 1.414s from his team-mate.

Maverick Viñales

"I’m still a bit disappointed about what happened on Sunday, because also today we were strong. Even after I crashed, I immediately did a fast lap afterwards, I was able to ride a 1’31-medium. I rode that best lap time with the new parts, and it feels like it can maybe help me gain something for the race. Already last week the bike was really good, and it’s difficult to improve it. With the new part I can ride the same lap times, but much more relaxed. This is a positive sign. It means that if I need to push, maybe I can ride a little bit faster. During this test we solved the problem with the graining that I had with the medium tyre, so for sure we will try to ride more with the medium tyre this weekend, but also the soft worked really well. I could do many laps and I finished the session with some 1’32-low laps, which is really good for us. We just need to understand why I lose grip during the race and feel like I’m riding on ice, because if that’s fixed, I can ride very fast and hit really good lap times without being on the limit."

Valentino Rossi

"We did a lot of hard work today, I did many laps, because we had a lot of different stuff to try. The test was not so bad. We worked on the bike. As always, out of all the things we tried, some were an improvement, others weren’t. But overall it was a good test. We found something that was positive, so we will try to be stronger for the upcoming weekend."

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

"Overall, it was a productive day. We had a long list of components to try here, including the chassis, rear arm, muffler, finger rear brake, and some setting tweaks. Both riders did a lot of laps, which was necessary for us to be able to check all the items. We also used this test to try a tyre combination that we might consider for the next race – hard front, medium rear – that unfortunately we weren’t able to try last weekend. The new chassis didn’t bring to the table what we expected, and we decided to use the current chassis for the remainder of the season. We will use the next few days to study today’s data. If we confirm the riders’ feelings in the data, Maverick and Valentino will already start FP1 with some of the other new items that we tried today."