REPSOL HONDA RIDERS LEARN MORE AT LE MANS
Repsol MotoGP tests, Le Mans, France
Monday, May 19 2008
Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden stayed on at Le
Mans today for a busy day of testing following yesterday's French Grand
Prix. Both riders focused on evaluating Michelin tyres and different
chassis set-up solutions in preparation for the next MotoGP event at
Mugello, Italy, on June 1. Pedrosa set the fastest lap of the tests,
using qualifying tyres and the end of the day, while hard-working
Hayden used race tyres throughout his impressive run of 113 laps.
Mugello is the first of a quick-fire run of six races over eight
weekends. Hayden's next duty, however, is this coming weekend, when he
will ride a demo lap aboard a 2007 RC212V just before the start of the
huge Indy 500 car race to promote September's inaugural Indianapolis
MotoGP event.
Dani Pedrosa, fastest lap: 1m 33.106s (77 laps)
"I think we made some positive steps today. We focused on the front
end, looking to improve feeling, so I tested several different front
tyres and tried several different set-up solutions. I also tried some
different electronics settings. I'm quite satisfied, we've learned a
few things that should be useful at the next few races. It was
difficult sometimes because the weather was quite cold, but finally it
worked out okay. At the end of the day I used a qualifying tyre because
we had to test something for qualifying. Now I'm looking forward to
Mugello, a great track with an incredible atmosphere, where I hope we
can have a better race."
Nicky Hayden, fastest lap: 1m 34.752s (113 laps)
"It was a hard weekend, today we found a couple of band aids for the
problems we've had here. We only tested with race tyres and we improved
our pace. I was able to go quicker than we went yesterday but still not
enough. We tried a lot of solutions and I can't really say we really
found any cures for the braking stability and for getting the bike to
enter the corner better. We went through a lot of stuff which at least
we can now rule out. We tried mainly setting changes and a few tyres,
which could possibly work well for us at other tracks, which we needed
to get a little bit of data on. It looked like the sky could open up
any time, it stayed dry but it wasn't a day for the beach! I feel a
little better now, so hopefully Mugello will go smoother for us."
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