Simon and Fores more than happy with good bike development
There are only about five hundred kilometers between Lissabon and Jerez. But as we know the last test at Estoril last week was almost entirely a waste because of the rain. Therefore a small group of Moto2 riders moved to Jerez today, hoping for the weather to be a little kinder to them for two days of testing. And they couldn’t have asked for better conditions.
Julian Simón, Xavi Fores and Marc Marquez and others shared the track with Ducati test rider Franco Battaini under excellent conditions. The sun was out with no wind and the temperatures never dropping under 20° Celcius throughout the day. Besides that the present riders could take advantage of almost no traffic on track with only ten riders out. In any case this impromptu Moto2 test has been a success.
It was particularly successful for MAPFRE Aspar rider Julian Simon who was highly motivated after not being able to test in Portugal and he showed it on track today. Simon continued to focus on the development of his chassis, but now turned towards working on the front end. In countless runs from eleven to five the Villacañas native found a steady rhythm in the ’43s and his best laptime was 1.43.38. A great laptime for the first day, considering that the Jerez track record is 1.44.71. As he did in Valencia Simon continues to prepare for the 2011 season at record pace and is already looking forward to get to work again tomorrow for further improvement.
On the other side of the box his teammate Xavi Fores also took advantage of a full day of work and also focused his work on fine-tuning the chassis. The Valenciano completed a full 62 laps, in order to further adapt his riding style to the Moto2 bike. His best laptime of the day was 1.44.90.
Julian Simon 1.43.38 (59 laps): “I am very happy because the evolution of the bike is going in the right direction. Today we worked mainly on the front, I wanted to get a good feeling. Jerez is a circuit with three very fast corner where you need to feel very safe in order not to lose any time. Today has been very productive, I could do a lot of laps and keep explaining to the mechanics everything I needed. The feeling was incredible and the laptimes too, we did well. Tomorrow we will focus on the rear part to see if we can find a base that we can use both for the test next week and for the Grand Prix. Besides testing different configurations of the front fork and with the height of the bike, I also tested new tires. Here we could use some and sort out others. In general the day could not have gone better, I hope that tomorrow the weather will also be good so we can keep on working. “
Xavi Forés 1.44.90 (62 laps): “Today has been a very positive day because we could test many things. We started the day with the bike slightly unbalanced, so we tested different geometries to get more comfortable. At the moment what matters most to me is to get a good setting for the chassis and improve my cornering, I need to go faster. I still have some bits of the 1000cc riding style, but I’m working on it and every day I feel more at ease. After many tests and playing with the height of the bike, at the end of the day we found a setup that allows me to ride more comfortably. The important thing is that we had a lot of time to work, hopefully tomorrow the weather stays as it is and I can evolve to get closer to the times of the front.”
Source: Mapfre Aspar Team
