Yamaha riders pace Aragon test

The Yamaha Factory Racing team wrapped up a successful one-day test at the Aragon Motorland circuit today. Riders Ben Spies and Jorge Lorenzo spent the sessions re-confirming areas tested in Monday’s Catalunya test. The focus was again on a new engine specification, various chassis settings and some electronics. The riders also took time to work on set up for the Aragon track ahead of the race later in the season.

Spies led the majority of the day as the fastest rider on track, only overtaken by team mate Lorenzo towards the end of the session with a gap difference of 0.255 seconds. The Factory riders were followed by satellite Yamaha riders Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso, making the top four all Yamaha.

Ben Spies, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Yamaha MotoGP

“This test has been very important because it’s not easy to find the best set up for the 1000cc bike here as there is so much change from the 800,” said Catalunya winner Jorge Lorenzo. “We tried the engine again like we did in Barcelona, there wasn’t so much difference so the engineers now have to make a decision for moving forward. They will consider the data from today to help them.”

“Today was a good test, to come back after not such a fantastic race on Sunday and be consistently fast here and in the Catalunya test is important,”Spies said. “We’ve worked really well with the bike and the electronics and just tried to change a few things and fine tune. The track was a lot better than we thought, we were expecting it to be quite dirty but it wasn’t. I feel like I’m getting back up to the potential of the bike and myself which is good.”