at the final race, according to the
former world champion.
"I'm surprised, because actu-
ally this engine was supposed
to be a little bit faster than the
one we tested in Misano and
Barcelona," said Quartararo, who
ended the day ninth. "I found that
it was same as two days ago.
Especially on the qualifying lap,
and we compared the speed and
was the same. So, we have to
analyze what happened because
also we had two tests—Misano
Barcelona—then Cal (Crutchlow
– Yamaha's test rider) made
Motegi and Jerez, and they see
the difference on the engine. But
right now, was no difference, so
we have to analyze really well
what happened."
Aside from the engine, there
were positives with the chassis
Franco Morbidelli tested. "I think
I improved the feeling, especially
with the new chassis, which is
more similar to Fabio's," said the
Italian. "I like that type of frame.
So that was positive. I did a good
improvement on the speed and
on the pace, but we need to
work more for sure."
The factory with the biggest
changes was KTM. Brad Binder
was a heartening seventh on a
radically different bike with a sig-
nificantly different aero package
from his 2022 entry. Helping the
RC16's turning performance was
the biggest priority.
"The guys have obviously had
a ton of things for us to try," said
the South African. "We tried our
new bike and of course there
are some things that were really
good, some things that weren't.
We tried a bit of a different aero
package today. I quite like that.
Felt quite nice for sure. They
need to still tweak it a little bit,
but the initial impression was
pretty good.
"So, I'd say it was a pretty
good final day of testing. I didn't
do a huge amount of laps, but
we did more quality runs. So
happy with everything that we
have achieved today and we
have given the guys a lot more
information to go home and
change things up before we get
to Sepang."
Neil Morrison
IN
THE
WIND
P28
KTM has essentially a new
GP bike and initial tests
have been positive.
Alex Rins, now on a Honda,
was well off the pace.
