Barberá and Di Meglio work on the chassis of their Open MotoGP Avintia Racing

Within the Open class we have the Avintia Racing team, which has completed three productive days at the Malaysian track. The work has focused above all on preparing and defining the bike with which the Spanish team will compete this season, with continuous testing of new components.

By Gloria9 February 2014 · 2 min read

The MotoGP World Championship test at the Sepang Circuit was extremely intense and involved a great deal of work for all the riders and teams, all of them preparing for the start of the 2014 season, which is expected to be highly interesting, both for the factory machines and for the Open bikes.

Within the Open class we have the Avintia Racing team, which has completed three productive days at the Malaysian track. The work has focused above all on preparing and defining the bike with which the Spanish team will compete this season, with continuous testing of new components and with the basic objective of gathering information for the development of the equipment that its two riders will take to the track before arriving at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Therefore, both Héctor Barberá and Mike Di Meglio have concentrated above all on obtaining the maximum possible data for building the new chassis, with the aim of getting the most out of the tyres that Bridgestone has developed for the premier class and, in particular, for the compounds specific to the Open class.

Now all the teams and riders will have two weeks of preparation away from the circuits, returning towards the end of the month for what will be the second pre-season test of 2014.

Statements from Héctor Barberá:

It has been three days of hard work. The truth is that I am happy, because the engine is much more powerful, which is clearly visible in the telemetry. And there is almost no difference compared to other bikes. This shows that our decision to sacrifice the second half of last year to work on the bike was the right one. Based on that, we have worked on the test bench.

As for the electronics, I think they are similar to last year’s, and we have also improved a lot with the Showa suspension. There we have taken another step forward. What we still need to work on most is the chassis. It has been adapted in a different way and does not suit these tyres. That will be the new material that arrives. For now we suffer from quite a lot of chattering, and it is a bit stiff and reactive, and all of that is transmitted to the handlebars, which makes it very demanding to ride. We have gathered very good information in this regard.

Source | Avintia Racing