Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP tweak race set-ups on Qatar test day 2

23-02-2020

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP tweak race set-ups on Qatar test day 2

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi concluded the second consecutive day of preseason testing at the Losail International Circuit, setting the third and ninth fastest time respectively.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team were back on track for the second day of the MotoGP Official Test Losail. Though the session was not without its challenges, with the humid early evening conditions catching out various riders, the Factory Yamaha crew soldiered on. Maverick Viñales was quick to get up to pace and earned third place in the Day-2 timesheets. Valentino Rossi also had a full-on workload and ended in ninth.

A carefully planned testing strategy paved the way for a further positive outcome for Viñales. He continued his mission to be fully prepared for the real test, the upcoming Qatar GP, covering all the bases. Clearly in his element, the Spaniard spent most of the day fine-tuning his YZR-M1 and gaining experience on the new Michelin tyres. He concluded the second day with a total of 68 laps and a fastest time of 1'54.264s, earning him third place in today’s timesheets, 0.226s from first.

Rossi also worked on his feeling with the Michelin tyres and the YZR-M1. He tried various setting modifications to get a clear sense of which direction he will further work on tomorrow. The Italian signed off with a few extra laps at the very end of the session, bringing his total up to 52. His best time of 1'54.740s, set on lap 22, put him in ninth place in the Day-2 standings, 0.702s from the top.

Tomorrow’s session will again be held from 13h00 – 20h00 local track time (GMT+3).

Maverick Vinales

We did the same work as yesterday. We’re trying to understand the bike and the tyres really well. We concentrated a lot on the rhythm. We’ve made good steps forward, but there are still some things to improve. My confidence is really good, but I need some more laps on the track. I did a couple of longer runs on the soft tyre to try to understand how it works and how it could work during the race. We are trying to cover all the things and all the doubts that we could have during the race weekend, just so during that weekend we can focus on riding and pushing a little bit more than we are doing now. I’m riding well, I think we’re getting a lot of information on the bike, and all the things we're doing are going well. I’m actually quite confident and happy.

Valentino Rossi

Today was also not so bad. I feel good and I had a good pace, but today was a bit more difficult compared to yesterday because we tried something to improve in some areas like braking. Unfortunately, we paid in other areas. Also yesterday it looked like the tyres would last for the whole distance of the race, but today we have more problems, so at the end of the day it was a bit more difficult for me. Also my position is a bit worse, but we are all close together. Tomorrow will be important, it will be the last day of winter testing, so we need to make a summary. I think we did a good job, we tried everything, so tomorrow we will see.

Massimo Meregalli

Today was another productive day for us. We got a lot of work done and this provides us with a good understanding of what final things to work on tomorrow. We had planned to do a race simulation today in the late afternoon. While we didn’t complete a full race distance, we did some longer stints and made promising steps working on the race set-up in relation to the possible race tyres. Maverick is feeling confident and comfortable on his bike. He’s looking competitive, posting quick and consistent times, so now it’s just a matter of getting in a lot of laps. Vale, on the other hand, had a more difficult day. He tried something but, though it was positive in some areas, it didn't help his overall performance. That said, it's good we tried it, because now we know, so it gives us further clarity. Our testing schedule is almost completed. Tomorrow we aim to tweak the final bits of our race package, so we’re ready for the first GP weekend.