Exactly a month on from their last test here at Jerez the Moto2 riders were back on track today to begin their final preparations for the opening round of the season in Qatar in two weeks time. For the first time this year the new official Moto2 engines were made available to the teams, with the intermediate category riders on track today from 14:30h to 17:30h. A full day is planned tomorrow and Wednesday with another half day on Thursday, which will bring preseason testing to an end. It looks set to be another close season in Moto2, with just a second separating the top fourteen riders today.
ASPAR Team rider Nico Terol finished with the eighth fastest time, half a second off the top. With slippery conditions on track the Spaniard was careful to take things steadily on the opening day, working on the set-up of his new Suter chassis and some new tyres in a quest for more grip. His team-mate Jordi Torres also worked with the latest Suter update but only managed to completed fourteen laps so he will have plenty of work to do tomorrow.
Nico Terol 1.43.931 (38 laps): “Today was quite a short day because we only spent half of it on track. There wasn't much grip out there but we were able to have a shakedown and set a consistent pace in the low 1'44s. We are half a second off the fastest lap but the times are close and for a first day I am pretty happy with our work. I would have liked to have improved the lap time but we still have plenty of time here. I was struggling to stop the bike from sliding in some areas. We tried two new tyres today and played around with the ride height to try and find more grip.”
Jordi Torres 1.45.240 (14 laps): “We used the new chassis today and compared the data from the last test here at Jerez. I don't know why but the track was very slippery today, maybe because it rained yesterday and today the temperature was quite high. It was a case of doing laps and waiting for the track conditions to improve. With us only having half a day to work we spent it revising our settings and checking everything was in order. Just before the end of the Moto2 session I had a crash in turn five. There was no damage to the bike or myself but it ended our day early.”
Mapfre Aspar Moto2 Press Release
