Torres and Terol lapping under circuit record at private test in Valencia

After their visit to Jerez last week a small handful of Moto2 and Moto3 continued their winter testing programme today at Valencia where MAPFRE Aspar riders Nico Terol and Jordi Torres were joined on track by the likes of Salom, Viñales, Luthi, West, De Angelis, Rossi, Lowes, Marini, Guevara and Loi. The track was open from 10 until 5pm and despite some low temperatures, strong winds and light drizzle towards the end of the day, which did not make for perfect conditions, the pace was still hot.

After their one-two in the final round of the 2013 season just over a week ago both Terol and Torres followed up with some lap record times last week in Jerez, and they did the same again at Valencia today. With a best time today of 1’35.30 Torres was well inside his own record of 1’35.694, whilst his team-mate Terol was not far behind him with a best of 1’35.40. Terol focused on testing the new Suter chassis today whilst Torres continued set-up work on the bike he used in the final stages of last season.

Jordi Torres 1.35.30 (39 laps): “Today’s test was short but intense and the few conclusions we were able to make were all positive. We compared some data from Jerez with some tests we have done here at Valencia and we were also planning to give the new chassis a run but the weather turned so we didn’t get chance. Anyway, we got some very useful set-up data and worked out how to make the rear shock work better. Let’s say we are on the right lines now with an eye on next season. We haven’t done a lot of laps today but the feeling was very good.”

Nico Terol 1.35.40 (51 laps): “We started testing at 11am and I set a 1’35.40 pretty much straight away. After that we switched to the 2014 bike and I couldn’t go as fast because we still have a lot of set-up work to do with it, but the conclusions were positive. The new Suter is a little stiff and I’m struggling a little bit to get it stopped under braking but we worked hard to improve it. We were planning to go back to the old bike at the end of the day to compare it but it started to spit with ran and we decided not to bother. Anyway, the overall feedback from this series of tests is very positive.”

Source: Aspar Team