Smith the fastest in a MotoGP test at Catalunya, hampered by the rain

The MotoGP World Championship riders held a test session yesterday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, although they were unable to work as much as they wanted, since rain showed up and they could not complete the objectives set for this testing day.

The fastest rider of the day was Bradley Smith, the Briton managed to lap in 1:42.018; in second place we saw Maverick Viñales, and just 58 thousandths behind was his teammate, Aleix Espargaró. Therefore, the Suzuki demonstrating their potential once again. However, with the arrival of the rain the team decided to end the test.

For the Repsol team Honda this was an important test, since they had decided to bring last season’s chassis to compare it with the current one, but due to the conditions they were ultimately unable to make these comparisons, a real shame because this would have been very interesting for Márquez and Pedrosa. Meanwhile, the Yamaha Movistar team decided not to take part in this test and headed to the Motorland Aragón Circuit to run tests there today.

The rest of the riders worked to the maximum. Yonny Hernández was fifth in the test standings, while trying new components for the brake setup. Pol Espargaró finished eighth in the timesheets, 0.655 seconds behind Smith.

Plenty of activity before the rain came into play, after which we saw little action on the track, as most teams and riders had called an end to the test at that point.

Márquez’s statements:

We haven’t had much luck with the weather today, because it started raining very early and we were only able to do three runs. The important thing is that the only thing we managed to test, last year’s chassis together with this year’s swingarm, has turned out a little more positive. We have to properly confirm it and compare it with the telemetry, because it wasn’t a very big step either and we couldn’t do many laps, but the first impression has been good. The rain interrupted our work, but we’ll see if we can keep working in this direction, because I feel better and better on the bike.

On to the next race.

Photo | MotoGP Official website and teams