Official testing at Jerez came to an end today for the Moto2 class after three days at the Spanish circuit.
British rider Sam Lowes was the one to top the timesheets on day three of testing. The Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 Racing Team rider dominated the last two sessions of the day finishing with the fastest time on the day of 1:42.075. Lowes has managed to reduce his time from day two by almost half a second.
After setting his record-breaking lap time of 1:41.730, Spanish AGR Team rider Pons fell which meant the end of testing for him at Jerez. He did not make it out on day three of testing but still nobody came close to his time. Stefan Bradl previously held the Moto2 lap record since 2011 with his time of 1:42.706 since Pons destroyed it on day two of testing, by the end of day three thirteen riders were able to beat this time yet were still unable to get anywhere as near as Pons. Fog prohibited all riders (bar Efren Vazquez) from venturing out onto track during the first session.
Forward Team rider Lorenzo Baldassarri was second fastest on day three after setting fairly consistent fastest lap times over the three days. Spanish Paginas Amarillas HP 40 rider Alex Rins finished third and Japanese rider Takaaki Nakagami finished fourth fastest.
New to the Dynavolt Intact GP team, German rider Jonas Folger could not improve on his fastest time from day two but remained in fifth place on the final day.
Garage Plus Interwetten rider Thomas Luthi, who dominated on day one of testing, was unable to improve on his times finishing in eight on day three, however his times from day one left him fifth fastest overall. Luthi’s teammate Dominique Aegerter slipped from third fastest on day two to twenty-first on day three; he finished behind him overall in sixth place.
Marcel Schrotter and British Leopard Racing Team rider Danny Kent followed on from Luthi on day three, both came close to their previous times during day three but finished tenth and twelfth overall. Kent remained the fast Leopard rider after they recently expanded their team to compete in the Moto2 class.
Injured Estrella Garcia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Alex Marquez ended his testing early again on day three, but before this he managed to take over half a second off his quickest time from day one; this left Marquez fifteenth overall.
Moto2 2015 Champion Johann Zarco was unable to improve on his fastest time from day one. The AJO Motorsport rider did not seem to feature on the timing sheets over the three days; his time of 1:42.952 left him in fourteenth overall just shy of a second of new lap record time from Pons and just behind Simone Corsi who has just transferred to the Speed Up Team.
New Dunlop tyre options for 2016 were available to riders throughout the Jerez test including a hard tyre suitable for certain resurfaced tracks which riders were able to experiment with. By the end of day three fifteen riders finished within one second of Sam Lowes. Overall, thirteen finished within one second of fastest time over Pons’ time. The Moto2 class have one more official testing session in Qatar from March 11th just a few days before the season opener at the Losail International Circuit on March 20th.
With results so close so far it makes for a very interesting season amongst the Moto2 class.
