Yamaha have encouraging day on development Michelins

The Movistar Yamaha team of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi had an encouraging day on Michelin’s latest development tyres at Monday’s one-day test at Jerez, according to team boss Massimo Meregalli.

Running new rubber aimed at solving the French firm’s current issue of having two constructions of tyres that give different feeling, the Italian says that both riders were pleased with the work that Michelin has done.

“The main objective for us today was to test the three front tyres, which we were able to do successfully. It was good to discover that both riders felt the benefit from the same tyre. This is encouraging as it really shows Michelin is working hard in the right direction to give as much confidence and performance as possible to the riders.”

Tyres aside, the riders also reverted once again to Yamaha’s 2016 configuration fuel tank, which moves much of the fuel load to the rear of the bike – but both riders admitted that they prefer the older 2015 shape.

“We were also able to make a further test with the rear fuel tank compared with the conventional one and were able to decide that we will continue with the conventional. Jorge reconfirmed a configuration of exhaust pipe and we were finally able to make some back-to-back tests with different electronic and chassis settings to complete the day.”