Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s Maverick Viñales and Aleix Espargaró had their first taste of the Red Bull Ring in Austria for two-days of testing today ahead of round 10 of the 2016 MotoGP™ World Championship next month.
Both riders and the team’s focus today was to learn the new circuit and prepare a good base set-up; and initial impressions were positive. Tomorrow, both will work on focussing on more-detailed set-ups on their GSX-RRs for the race that takes place on August 14th.
Maverick Viñales:
“The circuit is really nice, the speed is very high and having the walls so close, you can really notice it. Beside this, the track is peculiar; it is a stop-and-go layout where the acceleration will be very important, and because of this, it may not be the most suitable for our machine, but the set-up will also play a role. It will be the first time here for everybody, therefore it will also be a game between teams to see who will be the most effective with the set-up and adaptation. It’s good we are making this test; at least we can set a base and work on it during the ‘Summer Break’ - otherwise it would have been very hard to arrive here without any knowledge.”
Aleix Espargaró:
“I liked the track, the layout is very tight and with a lot of hard-braking and fast acceleration. It won’t be easy for us but we have already made some steps forward. This morning I felt very confident and throughout the day we consistently-increased our knowledge with new data. Here we are not trying any major improvements on the machine; we are only trying the track and preparing for the race.”
RED BULL RING TEST – Day1 Results:
1. Andrea DOVIZIOSO – 1’23.764 2. Andrea IANNONE – 1’24.347 3. Scott REDDING – 1’24.461 4. Casey STONER – 1’24.502 5. Maverick VIÑALES – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - 1’24.595 6. Hector BARBERA – 1’24.649 7. Eugene LAVERTY – 1’24.751 8. Danilo PETRUCCI – 1’24.992 9. Valentino ROSSI – 1’25.054 10. Aleix ESPARGARÓ – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR - 1’25.099 11. Yonni HERNANDEZ – 1’25.171 12. Jorge LORENZO – 1’25.175 13. Jack MILLER – 1’25.345 14. Cal CRUTCHLOW – 1’25.438 15. Loris BAZ – 1’25.994 16. Mika KALLIO – 1’26.056 17. Tito RABAT – 1’26.195 18. Tom LUTHI – 1’26.405
