Post-race Test Jerez: PRODUCITVE TEST COMPLETES JEREZ WEEKEND
Straight after Sunday’s Gran Premio de Espana Stefan Bradl and his Aprilia Racing Team Gresini completed a one-day test at the challenging Circuito de Jerez.
After a demanding weekend due to the hot conditions Stefan Bradl had no rest as a post-race test was scheduled for Monday at the same venue where he scored two more points for the championship in round four the day before. In similar conditions Bradl set 66 laps aboard his prototype RS-GP. Aprilia has brought some new parts as well further development for the all-new 2016 bike but there were also some tyres assessments to dealt with. After the test’s conclusion at 6:00 pm Bradl was pleased with the results and the job done on Monday in Jerez.
However, before the series continues with round five in Le Mans in less than two weeks, Bradl and his team are going to Mugello for another private one-day test next Monday.
#6 Stefan BRADL (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, Aprilia), P13 – 1´40.674 (50/66):
“It was an incredible hard day of work. Aprilia has brought a lot of new part for this test. In addition, we had to evaluate four new front tyres from Michelin. Based on the number of laps, you can see that we were very busy today. All testing’s with the respective developments to our bike were really informative, the first sensations are good. Of course, all these new parts must be evaluated at another track which is already scheduled for next Monday at the Mugello circuit. But then we will see if some of these developments we will use in Le Mans for the first time in a race weekend. Anyway, the most important developments were a new swing arm and a new chassis. Unfortunate, we weren’t able to run with it too many laps because we also had to try and use the new front tryes. This must take place in a certain time frame in order to get useful information. The compound itself wasn’t different but foremost it was a new casing which Michelin has engineered for this types. From our point of view, we realized very quickly that some tyres have potential whereas other ones are straight to sort out. However, we have to wait and see till Michelin has got the feedback from all other riders to do their judgment. But all these things were not all stuff in our agenda. Beyond that we were also working with the electronics as mainly with different engine mappings. But in the end we got positive results at all so for this it was a productive test. In terms of lap time it was even a successful day as I set my fastest lap time of the weekend today. However, this fact shouldn’t be overvalued because during the weekend I wasn’t able to set one super-fast lap time whereas our consistency as good. In addition, today’s track conditions were a bit better than during the previous days. Overall, I’m pleased with today’s job done but at the same time I feel tired and exhausted so some days off will be good to charge my batteries again before we face a busy week again with our private test on Monday and later the Grand Prix weekend in Le Mans.”
MotoGP™ Post-race Test Jerez:
1 Marc MARQUEZ / SPA / Repsol Honda Team / Honda / 1´39.313
2 Jorge LORENZO / ITA / Movistar Yamaha MotoGP / Yamaha / 1´39.332 +0.019
3 Maverick VINALES / SPA / Team SUZUKI ECSTAR / Suzuki / 1´39.536 +0.223
13 Stefan BRADL / GER / Aprilia Racing Team Gresini / Aprilia / 1´40.674 +1.361