VOL. 52 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 18, 2015 P73
Briefly...
The freeze on new electronic de-
velopments that came into force
after the Assen GP will not be a ma-
jor drawback, according to Marc
Marquez, as he continues the
quest to get his Honda to work for
his loose riding style. "We still have
many, many parameters [that we can
adjust]," he said. The first break-
through came when he dumped the
2015 chassis, on which he had suf-
fered three race crashes, and was
at once back to his more usual self,
second at Assen and winning the
next two rounds—but he still spoke
about the need for further improve-
ment to throttle response and engine
braking, which he expected to find
through electronics. "We are also
working on the balance of the bike.
I think that is more important," he
added.
Riders faced the Monday test of Mi-
chelin tires with some trepidation,
after a rash of front-end crashes at
the last outing at Mugello meant they
had abandoned plans for any race
simulations. "It is important to try,
because the next test will be after
Valencia," said Rossi. But with this
year's championship in the balance,
he was reluctant to commit himself to
more than a gentle exploration. "We
will have to be more than careful," he
concluded.
The beleaguered Forward Racing
team returned at Brno, with Clau-
dio Corti taking the place of the de-
parted Stefan Bradl alongside Loris
Baz in MotoGP, and Simone Corsi
and Lorenzo Baldassarri in Moto2.
But there was still a question mark
over whether they could complete
race with the medium/medium
tires—but those were the ones I
felt best with," Lorenzo said. "I
think after Moto2 also the track
was a little bit more slippery. But
when the fuel dropped, I could
brake later and enter the corners
faster. I think this was the key of
the race. I was able to improve
came after a lap he described as
"maybe my best ever." A new re-
cord. Marquez got within 0.074
seconds, but even then was not
confident of matching Lorenzo's
race pace.
"It was warming up from the
morning, so I was a little bit
worried about the end of the
Rossi took too
long to get past
Dovizioso and
paid the price.
continued on page 77