New Yamaha potential thrills Lorenzo and Spies

Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies both expressed their delight at the early potential of Yamaha’s new 1000cc MotoGP machine after they completed a second successful test on next year’s bike in Misano yesterday.

Track conditions were far from ideal after strong winds and light rain on Sunday night meant the surface was dirty and slippery, but Lorenzo and Spies were still able to get in 134 valuable development laps between them.

Lorenzo, who dominated Sunday’s race to cut Casey Stoner’s points lead to 35 with five races remaining, set a best lap of 1.33.7 to better his quickest time on the 800cc YZR-M1 of 1.33.906.

Texan Spies completed 74 laps and he set a best time of 1.34.3, which ducked under his best race lap of 1.34.518 on the 800cc version.

Lorenzo and Spies had made shown the immediate competitiveness of the new bike in Brno last month, but the Misano test was a completely different challenge on a much tighter and slower layout.

Lorenzo told MCN: “I was quite impressed because we tried the 1000cc bike in a different track. Brno is much wider than Misano and faster and here it is much more difficult to be at the same level as the 800 at this moment but the bike has great potential and this is good.

“It is quite difficult to ride the 1000cc bike, especially in the first laps because with the 800 we exit the box and on the first fast lap we are close to the best time doing 34.0. But on the 1000 you are doing 35s and 36s before it comes better, so for this reason it is more difficult to warm up the tyres and have good confidence for the entry of the corners. I think the first two or three laps in the race will be more difficult and we might see some more overtaking.”

Spies told MCN: “It is definitely a lot different riding the 1000 round here than the 800. In Brno everything was a lot faster but here you have to ride it a little bit different and it was a handful round this track but quite a lot of fun. We were trying to get more getting comfortable in the way you have to ride a 1000s. You have to shift the corner entry because it is a bit different.

“We had some different front-end options and some suspension stuff but I mainly worked on electronics with traction control. It was more about keeping it fast but tame and easy to ride at the same time. As a well-rounded package they’ve done a fantastic job so far and for only the second day on the bike it is right on schedule. I feel we have a great package but we need to wait until we’re on the line with everybody else and see where we stack up.”