Terol and Elias satisfied with overall pace and progress during second official test

After three days of intense activity and after hours and hours of riding, still none of the riders wanted to leave Jerez on what was the best of the three days of testing. Weather conditions had improved, the temperature was ideal and the majority of the teams took advantage of this, practically working from the first hour of the day until the final minutes of the session. Afterwards everyone packed up their things for this months and unless someone organizes a private test, the Moto2 riders won’t meet again until the middle of March for the third and final official IRTA test, again at Jerez, held from March 19th to 21st. Laptimes have again dropped considerably and in its third season Moto2 will again be a hotly contested class.

Exhausted but satisfied were both Mapfre Aspar riders, Nico Terol and Toni Elías, when they left the Circuito de Jerez. Both of them have accomplished what they came to Jerez for, starting the third and final day earlier than before, still having a lot to test. They focused their efforts on the setup of the chassis. Nico again set his sights on finding more grip on the rear and reducing the vibrations on the front of the bike. His teammate Toni Elias continued to work on the suspension and the chassis to get more speed in the fast corners. They’ve each posted a personal best laptime of 1.43.60 and felt completely satisfied with their performance after having ridden at a constant pace of 1.43s throughout most of the day. Now they will have time to recover a little, having done no less than 394 laps between the two (226 Toni and 168 Nico) during all three days of testing.

Nico Terol 1.43.60 (62 laps): “I’m also very happy with the results of this third day at Jerez. Physically I feel better every time I get on the Moto2 and can complete more laps. I did the last session of the day with a great pace, lapping constantly in the 1.43s, but afterwards we encountered some vibrations on the front of the bike. Here I notice that I’m lacking experience in this class, because trying to resolve this with determination and a little too quickly, we got caught up in it. My mechanics did a great job and we went ahead without difficulty. I take away a very positive lesson from this test, because our laptimes are pretty fast and also improved every day. The pace has also been perfect throughout these three days, I think this is key to further progress.”

Toni Elías 1.43.60 (71 laps): “I leave Jerez satisfied, because we made a clear progression. We make progress at a good pace and every time we get closer to the laptimes of the front guys. Today for the first time we rode in the 1.43s, considering that the last time I was here it was hard to get into 1.45, this is a good result. I’m satisfied, because every time the bike works better and gradually I’m adapting to it. Surely we still have things to improve, but we worked a lot in these three days and thanks to that we collected a big amount of data which we will analyse during the break until the next test. I say Goodbye to Jerez also very happy with the team, it’s a very smooth relationship and I think we’re doing a progressing work which will bring us on the right track.”

Source: Mapfre Aspar Team