MotoGP testing wrap

Off-season MotoGP testing has had its first two sessions over the last fortnight, first at Valencia - immediately after the season's closing round - and then Sepang in Malaysia.

It's questionable how much can be read into the results, as teams grapple with some new equipment, variations in settings and, in some cases, whole new teams.

However 2006 world champ Nicky Hayden might have drawn some consolation from the final day at Sepang, where he dominated the lap times on his Honda.

So too would up-and-coming Australian Kawasaki rider Anthony West, who was thrown in at the deep end this year with his Kawasaki with no pre-season experience. He was pulling respectable times, within a second of the leaders.

Suzuki came away very happy with the Sepang results, having given its 2008 machine a comprehensive run. Australian Chris Vermeulen lead the corporate charge, closely shadowed by by Loris Capirossi, who has just moved across from Ducati.

The team reports: Chris Vermeulen (pictured) was able to give the 2008 prototype Suzuki GSV-R a comprehensive test at the 5.5km Malaysian circuit to assess what improvements and developments are needed in readiness for an assault on next year's championship. He was regularly amongst the fastest riders on race tyres throughout the test and even a small crash at the end of the third day did not dampen his enthusiasm for the new bike. Vermeulen carried out in-depth evaluations of the 2008 machine and conducted a long distance run on the final afternoon in the searing Sepang heat as track temperatures reached 55°C.

New Suzuki rider Loris Capirossi, in only his second outing for the Japanese factory, was able to get onboard the 2008 bike for the first time at Sepang this week. He began the three-day test with a thorough appraisal of the 2007 machine to enable him to totally understand the workings of the GSV-R, before changing to next year's model on day two. Although almost a third of the test was lost to bad weather, Capirossi soon got to grips with the new bike and was consistently lapping faster than he had done on this year's machine.

Chris Vermeulen:
"It's been a great three-day test here in Sepang. We started out with the 2007 bike with the same settings that I had for the race and then we transferred them to the new prototype '08 bike. It was definitely a step forward, and speaking with Loris he had similar comments - so that was great. We tested a lot of things here including engine maps, traction control, chassis set-up, new Ohlins suspension and of course lots of tyre testing for Bridgestone. It has been a very busy few days but I am extremely happy with the progress that we have made. Today we concentrated on a longer run and I did the furthest distance at about two o'clock in the afternoon when the track was at its hottest (55 degrees surface temp -- Ed) -- like it would be on race day -- and the bike performed really well and we were quicker than we were in the race. So all-in-all it's been a very good test for us!"

For Yamaha the big issue in the absence of Valentino Rossi was settling in new recruit Jorge Lornazo, who has just moved up fromthe 250 class.

Yamaha reports from Sepang: Future Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo rounded off his second test with the factory with more steady improvement in Malaysia today, bettering his lap time from yesterday by almost a second. After intermittent rain for the last two days, the MotoGP teams were rewarded with a completely dry day today and Lorenzo made the most of the time available, completing 83 laps of the 5,548m circuit.

Lorenzo's best time of 2'02.643, which put him seventh, was set on qualifying tyres near the end of the day. However he set his fastest lap on race tyres in the early afternoon, his time of 2.03.044 showing his improvement over the course of the test. The quickest lap of the day was set by Nicky Hayden, also on qualifying tyres, in a time of 2.00.592

The Fiat Yamaha Team will now pack up and return to Europe for a week's rest before the final test of the year at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain on 27th, 28th and 29th November.

Jorge Lorenzo:
"Overall I'm happy with these three days of testing. It's been hard work but I have improved each day and especially today, when I have gone nearly one second faster with race tyres than I was yesterday. I've been concentrating on changing my riding style; braking later and accelerating sooner and we can see from the data that I have improved quite a lot, although we still have more to do. I am okay on the longer, faster corners but on the slower ones I have more problems. We haven't done so much work on the tyres, just trying one different tyre, the same as we tried in Valencia, and with this tyre we improved half a second. I didn't ride the new bike today but it was good to get the chance to try it briefly yesterday. We won't start working on it properly until January; for now the important thing is for me to learn as much as possible about ridin g a MotoGP bike. I've had fun these three days and I'm quite happy with my progress, and now we will look forward to Jerez."

Unofficial Lap Times 16 November:

15 November:

Not all the teams went to Sepang, but most were on hand for the earlier Valencia test, dominated by Ducati and newly minted Aussie world champ Casey Stoner.

Ducati was, not surprisingly, upbeat about its prospects after the session particularly after setting times that were faster than the previous weekend's race.

Casey Stoner:
"We found something extra during these tests. Straight away yesterday, second lap out, we went a lot quicker than we did in the race on Sunday and we just kept going from there. Today we kept getting faster and faster. We weren't really trying to do that, we had a lot of tyres and things to test, so we weren't out there trying to do lap times, but everything just seemed to come to us quite easily. It's been a fantastic season for us and it's really good to end this test with some positives and some more information which the Ducati technicians can take back to Bologna, knowing that we've got something more to work with and knowing the right direction in which to head."

Unofficial lap times: 7 November:

Sources: Yamaha-racing.com, Ducati.com, Suzuki-racing.com