FEATURE
P52
MOTOGP TEST/NOVEMBER 10-11, 2015 / RICARDO TORMO CIRCUIT / VALENCIA,
optimistic after his two days and
103 laps, himself a triple faller like
Vinales. The senior member of the
Suzuki team notes that although
the grip of the rear is very good,
like Lorenzo and Rossi, he strug-
gled with the feeling from the front.
"For sure, the riding style has
to change," he said. "I need to
push more in the front and to take
advantage of the positives of these
new Michelins. To have much more
grip at the rear means that I can
take the bike up immediately at
mid-corner and open the throttle
earlier. Of course we need to also
change the machine's setup. So far
we focused to get our impressions
of the tires without major improve-
ments in the bike, so we will now
start to change the machine."
SUZUKI ECSTAR
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2
ND
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U
nlike Honda, Yamaha and
Ducati who all focused their
attentions on a combination
of tire and ECU tests, Suzuki Ec-
star chose to run their 2015 spec
machine and ECU across both
days and wait until Sepang next
February to try the new Magnetti
Marelli software.
Despite three crashes across
the test, Vinales was flying by the
end and after 116 laps sat a very
impressive second overall in the
timesheets.
The times are a bit hard to draw
proper conclusions from, consider-
ing the team will have the use of
the 2016 chassis and a seamless
shift gearbox in Sepang (like Honda
and Yamaha), although it remains to
be seen how the new machine will
perform with the new control ECU.
"I feel comfortable with them
(Michelin tires)," said Vinales. "I
could have been more effective in
the braking as the rear is so stable,
allowing me to be effective in the
entrance of the corner and also
in corner speed. The character
of these tires is different from the
previous ones, we need to better-
understand how they react, but
also the consistency is very good,
when the tires get worn I still feel I
can trust them."
Espargaro was cautiously
(Right) Vinales
used the 2015-
spec chassis and
electronics to go
second-fastest.
(Below) Despite
a couple of falls,
Espargaro finished
fourth fastest.
