Weather forecasts fail as Barrier leads final day

According to all sources the final day of testing at Jerez was going to be plagued by the same kind of heavy rain and winds that blighted the previous day’s action. In reality the grey start and occasional drops of very light rain gave way to bright sunshine for most of the second part of the day.

Despite a patchy and slippery track surface in places, even at the end, Sylvain Barrier’s BMW Motorrad Italia team clocked him with a 1’43.0, with most other riders way short of this level on a day of tricky track conditions. Most had also finished up their test programmes earlier than the French rider, who was using the new S1000RR.

“We worked only on the electronics and I feel we have a lot of potential with this bike,” said Barrier. “On the rest of the bike we did not change one spring, or close the preload, nothing. We took the set-up from the race, put it in the new bike and said ‘let’s go’. We will work more on the electronics side and after I think everything will go in a good place. On the track there were some patches where it was still wet but I stopped a little early because the sun went away and could not see where it was wet and not wet. But the track got quite dry, except for some patches.”

With most of the teams, from WSB and particularly MotoGP, already gone it was just up to Michele Pirro’s Ducati test team to set laps for the GP class, while KRT, Ducati World Superbike, BMW Motorrad Italia and MV Agusta were the only full World Superbike teams on display. Two MV Agusta Supersport machines and two Ducati Superstock bikes completed the small field of riders on the last day.

Nobody got close to the kind of times the best riders were setting on the dry sessions on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, so Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) ended up the fastest WSB rider over the entire five day test with a 1.40.730 set on Tuesday afternoon. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Factory) was the fastest MotoGP rider overall, with a 1’38.9 set without a transponder on Wednesday.

No times were given today for Pirro, nor the Ducati Superbike pairing of Davies and Giugliano on Friday, because track conditions were so unpredictable. None of them were running transponders.

Kawasaki finished early and only had Tom Sykes performing practice starts, while Jonathan Rea did 14 laps before also stopping long before the official finish at 18.00.

Chaz Davies (Ducati World Superbike) was another who finished before the final whistle. As the sun dropped he also had visibility problems in a series of fast corners and decided to stop.

 

1. Sylvain Barrier (F), BMW WSB, 1:43,0
2. Lorenzo Zanetti (I), MV Agusta WSS, 1:47,444
3. Jules Cluzel (F), MV Agusta WSS, 1:47,669
4. Jonathan Rea (GB), Kawasaki WSB, 1:52,616
5. Fabio Massei (I), Ducati STK, 1:52,954
6. Leon Camier (GB), MV Agusta WSB, 1:54,195
7. Tony Covena (NL), Ducati STK, 1:58,058

 

• Tom Sykes (GB), Kawasaki WSB, No lap time set
• Michele Pirro (I), Ducati MotoGP. No lap time given
• Chaz Davies (GB), Ducati WSB, No lap time given
• Davide Giugliano (I), Ducati WSB, No lap time given