two soft tires for the final gallop.
Nor was the excitement over
"fastest-ever Sepang laps"
really justified. The best-ever
time dates back to 2019; Covid-
stricken Malaysia missed out
2020 and 2021. It is only to be
expected that three years of
technical progress, for engines,
chassis and tires, should yield
an improvement.
Even Bastianini's leading role
is hedged with ifs and buts.
Sure, the 2020 Moto2 Cham-
pion has shown strong talent on
a MotoGP bike, with two rookie
podiums in 2021, on a low-grade
privateer Ducati. This year he
is still not in the top echelon for
the Italian factory. In his new
Gresini team, the squad hav-
ing switched from Aprilias, he is
still on last year's bike. But this
can be counted as an asset at
the early tests. The GP21 is fully
sorted and polished, up against
2022 prototypes still seeking the
right settings. Riders on the lat-
est factory Dukes, for example,
were hard at work trying to find
the right balance and throttle
connection for the new power-
up motor.
Similarly, with no previous
reference at Mandalika, conclu-
sions had to be hedged with
reservations.
Lap times are important,
though. Numbers do matter:
the salient detail being just how
close they all were. At Sepang,
the top six were all inside the
previous fastest lap, top 13
inside half a second—at a long
I
t begins again, first tests are
under way for MotoGP. First
out at Sepang to quicken the
blood. And quicken the pace—
with brand new all-time best
lap times, set by some surpris-
ing people. On day one, Aleix
Espargaro's Aprilia, continuing
its upward swing; on day two,
sophomore Enea Bastianini, set-
tling in to his new Gresini team.
And then on to the fast,
sweeping new track at Manda-
lika in Indonesia, where from
the start, riders were faced with
dodgy weather and a very green
surface.
What do tests really mean?
Well, everything... and nothing.
They're only tests, not conclu-
sive events. For one thing, final
lap times at Sepang were under-
mined by rain on day two. Riders
planning a late-afternoon time
attack were thwarted. This basi-
cally means all of them, not least
defending champion Quartararo,
left frustrated after having saved
P116
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
What do tests really mean? Well,
everything, and nothing. They're only
tests, not conclusive events.
Here We Go Again
