Spies and Lorenzo continue testing with 2012 Yamaha MotoGP 1000cc prototype at Misano

Misano MotoGP race winner Jorge Lorenzo and teammate Ben Spies got their second chance to run the 2012 Yamaha YZR-M1 1000cc prototype during a post-race test at the Misano Adriatico circuit on Monday. Instead of the abbreviated test at Brno (which was mostly a shakedown test, plus Spies was still suffering from the pinched nerve in his neck and wanted to keep the laps to a minimum so that he could head back to the U.S. for treatment), the test at Misano ran a full day, enabling both riders to turn a good number of laps and give the engineers a substantial amount of data to work with.

Interestingly, Yamaha Racing released some lap times for Lorenzo and Spies, which were a bit down from the race weekend run with the 800s. Lorenzo apparently got down to a 1:33.7, which compares favorably with his race record lap of 1:33.9 (even though Casey Stoner took pole with a scorching 1:33.1), while Spies was listed as running a best of 1:34.3; needless to say, it’s early days yet, and with the 2012 season still a good number of months away (and more tests to come), those times mean little at this point.

“It’s a little bit more difficult here than Brno,” said Lorenzo about the Misano test, “because Brno is [wide] and very fast. This track is a little bit more slow, so the difference between 800 and 1000 is much, much (closer). It’s difficult to understand more or less the riding style you must use with this bike, but anyway I think we are making a lot of progress. And the bike has a lot of potential, so I’m very excited about the future.” When asked about any weaknesses that have shown up with the 1000cc prototype, Lorenzo replied, “We have a little bit problems in the braking, we arrive in a very high speed, and then it’s very difficult to stop the bike. But we are working with the electronics and the chassis to try to avoid this problem. In general I am getting used to this riding style that is so completely different, and we are also adapting the bike to my riding.” The only changes were modifications to the electronics and chassis setup, with Lorenzo revealing that the test bike was “quite similar, we didn’t have anything very very new, but small little steps we are trying now. Maybe in the final months of the year, we have something really, really new. It’s still too soon to understand if we are much more faster than 800, here we are still a little bit slower, so I think it has potential but we must work a lot.”

“It was good,” said Spies. “At Brno we had pretty much a half day of testing, and today we got a full day. After a long hard weekend, it was really good. I’m happy with how everything went. We got a lot of things worked out with the electronics, with looking at different pieces, getting a lot of data for the engineers, from the wheelie control, the traction control, everything. I’m quite happy with it, we got down to reasonably fast times—with the rubber on the track, I don’t think it was quite as fast as yesterday—and now we just wait until the next test.” Asked about the strong points of the 1000, Spies noted that “the strong points [with the 1000cc] bike are hard to say right now because we haven’t been on the track with many other 1000s, so we don’t really know. The bike feels good, and the good thing is we don’t have any real big problem. I think the bike’s really well balanced, just like the 800 is this year. For sure we need to improve in every department, but there’s no one weak point about the bike right now, so after the first real day of testing, I’m actually pretty happy. This track is also very difficult to ride, and then going around it on a 1000 isn’t easy.” Did he have a wish list of improvements for the next time he rides it? “Well, I guess the normal stuff anytime you get on a new bike…just rear grip, and less wheelying because it has so much power. But that can be fixed, so now it’s just let them put their heads together and see what they can do; I gave them all the information I can and we’ll see what they can give us at the next test. We’ve got a good package right now.”