Tyre wear concerns Andrea Dovizioso

Andrea Dovizioso said Bridgestone’s new soft construction tyres lose grip too quickly after he tried his first distance run on Yamaha’s YZR-M1 machine in Sepang yesterday.

The Italian completed 15-laps but his pace in the second half of his long run dropped off considerably as he slipped into the high 2.02 bracket.

The new spec Bridgestone tyres have been designed with better initial warm-up performance to avoid a spate of cold tyre high-sides.

But the trade-off has been endurance with Dovizioso and factory Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo reporting a significant drop in performance after just four laps.

Lorenzo completed a 19-lap race simulation and he too spoke of how early and suddenly he lost traction, though his times were considerably faster and more consistent than Dovizioso’s and he only dropped into the low 2.02s for three laps.

Dovizioso, who finished third in last year’s MotoGP world championship, told MCN: “The grip dropped a lot. The loss of grip to be honest was too much. The last seven laps for me were really bad and my lap time decreased too much. But we are still in a good situation.”

And he agreed with 2010 world champion that tyre management this season with the more powerful 1000cc machines is going to be pivotal.

He added: “I think it is going to very crucial. They made a tyre to warm-up better so we lose a little bit of potential at the end. We have to see what happens in other tracks because the high temperature here is a factor.”

Dovizioso finished the test with the third fastest time. His best of 2.00.802 was only 0.329s behind dominant Aussie Casey Stoner and he added: “We have to work but we improved a lot and my feeling with Yamaha has improved.

“I still need to improve more and in these two tests I have tried to understand how to ride the Yamaha more than change the bike. Now we are quite fast and my feeling with the bike is good.”

For seven pages of news and views from the Sepang test, see the March 7 issue of Motor Cycle News.