It was Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo who set the fastest time on the second day of the private test held at the Aragón circuit in Spain, with Repsol Honda Team’s Dani Pedrosa topping the combined timesheets across the two days.

On the second day of the privately held test with Yamaha Factory Racing, the Repsol Honda Team and LCR Honda MotoGP, where all riders were also tasked with testing a new rear tyre for Bridgestone, it was Lorenzo who went quickest with a 1.48’244 whilst testing both a new chassis as well as a new engine.

Despite conditions significantly hotter than yesterday, Lorenzo managed to better his time from yesterday, though could not match Pedrosa’s 1.47’983.

The championship leader commented:

"Today was a very long day. We did a race simulation at the end of the session of 22 laps. Now I feel very tired, but it was necessary to see the performance of the special rear tyre. I think the rear tyre was a little bit worse than the ones I tried across the two days. Something was wrong, because I had much more chattering and a bad feeling on the corners. But in general we’re leaving the track with happiness and confidence, because we are one second faster than the last time."

His teammate Ben Spies, who finished the day in fourth with a 1.48’946, was also content with his day’s work. The American said:

"We basically tested the bike over race distance and did a race simulation, and set the bike up more for the end of the race. We worked on some different fork and shock settings. A little bit of electronics but nothing major, just fine tuning with the bike. It seems ok and I’m positive for the rest of the year."

Pedrosa, who set a time of 1.48’499 to finish the day behind Lorenzo, was focussing his efforts on suspension once more, as well as testing a new exhaust. He stated:

"Today I had a test on a new exhaust to see if we can get better driveability of the engine. Some positives. We also tried a different rear shock to get more grip. In general it was a positive test so I’m happy."

Jonathan Rea, the SBK Ten Kate Honda rider substituting in place of the injured Casey Stoner, continued to put in the laps, stating that the tyres are still the main sticking point. He did however improve on his time yesterday and finished under two seconds off the top. Rea commented:

"Yesterday we did a lot of work with the base setting, and we confirmed that this morning. Still, I’m not so happy finishing the corner. And this afternoon I tried a long run on the tyre and my fastest lap came right at the end, so I need to push this tyre much harder. But it’s like trust thing – I need to trust the tyre more. When I went out in the last outing with the new tyre, I pushed a little harder and trusted the tyre, and it worked. Maybe the idea is to just push more and more."

LCR Honda MotoGP’s Bradl, who continued to work with the factory spec bike, finished the day in third, and was pleased that some of his findings will help improve rear grip on his current machine:

"It’s a request from Honda that they want to have some information about this new bike, and we re-tested a similar situation as we did yesterday. We found some more grip, and I’m happy to go with it, but also it was an improvement for our bike, which we’re using this year [as he was able to transfer the information to the satellite machine]."

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