Movistar Yamaha Progress on Thailand Test Day Two
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20/02/2018
Today the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team have wrapped up the second day of testing at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand. Both riders spent the available time fine-tuning their bikes' settings and finished in 4th and 14th place respectively in the combined timesheets.
Rossi breached into the top-10 quickly after heading out on track this morning. He set his fastest lap of the day with a 1'30.888s on lap 22, before he returned to the order of the day: establishing a good balance for his bike.
Like his teammate, the Doctor put in a serious effort, riding 65 laps in total, to compare different tyre specifications as well as some electronics and setting amendments. Though he was unable to find a set-up that worked well enough to better the time he set earlier, he still ended in 14th place in the Day 2 rankings, 0.919s from first.
Valentino Rossi
Position: 14th - Time: 1'30.888 - Laps: 65
"It was a tough day. We started quite well this morning, I did some good lap times, and after we had some work to do and some new things to try. Sincerely, I didn't like it a lot. We tried some different things for the electronics and also the setting, but unfortunately we didn't find an improvement. We also had to do a bit of work for Michelin. They wanted us to try some other rear tyres. We have to stay concentrated and follow a different way tomorrow."
Massimo Meregali
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director
"It was another day of hard work for us. We tried many things to improve the riders' feeling on the bike. They each worked in their own direction. Valentino also tried several setting variations, but none of them were an improvement, so tomorrow we'll approach the issues differently. The riders also tried some of the four rear tyre specifications that Michelin brought here to test. We have still one more day of testing to complete, so we will see what the riders' verdict is tomorrow."
