Although the final result at the end of two days of testing was not what Troy would’ve have liked, he was happy with all the work done by him and the team and the amount of information and material they gathered. Early morning rain meant a damp track at the start of this morning’s session, so most riders waited until the 4.445 kilometre circuit dried out before beginning their day’s work. Troy concentrated on getting through as much testing as possible and did not chase lap times, so it was no surprise that he ended up where he did.
At the end of the day, Ducatis filled the top four places, with Michel Fabrizio the fastest, with a time of 1:31.650. Second was Shane Byrne, with Jakub Smrz third and Carlos Checa fourth.
Troy - 134 laps (two days), best lap 1:32.819
I must admit that it has been a bit hard remaining fully focussed these past two days because my grandfather (or ‘Pops’ as he was known) died recently and the funeral service was just before these tests. I would like to thank everybody for their kind thoughts and consideration. I knew that I could’ve got a better lap time if I had pushed harder today, but I wanted to continue to improve the bike and not crash whilst chasing a fast lap. Our bike is very different to what is was when we came here last year and so a lot of the work had to start from scratch. We started pretty much with a set-up we hoped that would give better grip and we did get more grip but the bike became a bit harsh on the bumps. So then we had to try and get rid of the harshness and make the bike more comfortable to ride again.
The couple of race tyres we were given felt quite stiff and so we had to adjust the bike to fit and then get as much data as possible, ready for next week.
Sometimes it seems that we don’t get normal reactions when we make normal changes, but the info we got these two days will give the guys lots to work on and sort out for next weekend and that is the main thing. After all the laps and time on the bike these two days, I still feel good and that is because of my new training programme and, after today, a race day is going to feel easy!
See ya
Troy
Overall results (two days)
1 Fabrizio (ITA-Ducati) 1:31.650, 2 Byrne (GBR-Ducati) 1:31.652, 3 Smrz (CZE-Ducati) 1:31.680, 4 Checa (ESP-Ducati) 1:31.959, 5 Rea (GBR-Honda) 1:32.175, 6 Haga (JPN-Ducati) 1:32.247, 13 TROY CORSER (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) 1:32.819
