MotoGP: Iannone pleased with positive test

Andrea Iannone says he’s delighted with the positive feeling that he and his new Suzuki team have made with his new GSX-RR machine after three days of testing in Sepang, where the Italian finished second overall.

Speaking after the conclusion of the test, he came away delighted with his progress, despite a crash and some issues with the machine.

“The day was positive and my feeling is good. Today we tried to focus on the race pace, finding a good balance of the bike and consistency in performance, and we improved session by session, which is positive. Also, the settings got some improvements, especially on the front; yesterday we experienced some vibrations in braking and slow corners and today we managed to find a good solution. 

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 “Overall I am very satisfied with these three-days, we worked very well with my team and the feeling with the GSX-RR is very positive. Of course, we have many areas we can improve upon, but now our engineers have much data to work on and for sure we will be able to make further steps forward.”

Rookie teammate Alex Rins, making his first proper test on the bike after injuring his spine last time out in Valencia, also had a positive outing as he continues to adapt from Moto2 to MotoGP machinery,

“My feelings are very positive, I felt very confident on the bike and also the back is ok. In these three days we worked hard mainly to find the feeling with the bike, to adapt my riding style properly and also be more effective onboard. Today we could also work on the geometry of the bike and the outcomes were positive.

“I will need more and more kilometres, I need to better-understand the machine and grow myself. It’s mainly a matter of experience, because already today I saw that as the more experience I get, the better the times become.”

And with a happy test comes a happy team boss – with tehhnical manager Ken Kawauchi also pleased with the outing.

“First test is always strange because you are always eager to try so many new things, but on the other hand you are a bit worried for the results in testing new parts. The weather conditions sometimes affected our program as we couldn’t ride because of the wet asphalt, but all-in-all we are very happy. Andrea did a great lap-time already on the second day and today he could do a long run, but unfortunately, he crashed.

“Despite this issue, we found many areas where we can improve before the first race and this is a good thing. Regarding Alex, it was a big surprise for us because of his improvement and honestly, we didn’t expect his lap-time because Sepang was only his first real MotoGP test after the crash in Valencia. He did a good job. Both riders gave us the same direction for the development of the bike and this is really important for us to improve.

“We don’t have so much time before Phillip Island to prepare things, but we will do our best to get some improvements there. Our aim now is continuing to improve the bike on the basis of the new 2017 engine.” 

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