Movistar Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales topped the combined time sheets for the third successive test this pre-season after posting the fastest lap of the week on the final day of running in Australia.
The Spaniard has been on incredible form this week. For much of it he spent his time doing race runs as he seeks consistency on his YZR-M1. Vinales completed over 100 laps today and posted a best effort of 1m28.549s during a run of several sub-1m29s laps.
Honda may have struggled with electronics for much of this week, but seemed to have largely gotten on top of the issue on Friday. Marc Marquez complained of a lack of ‘connection’ between the throttle and the rear wheel this week, but still managed some ominous race runs on all three days.
The Spaniard, who turns 24 today, circulated Phillip Island 96 times today and ends the test second overall after an early lap of 1m28.843s. Team-mate Dani Pedrosa missed much of Thursday’s action with a throat infection, but was fighting fit again today and put in 65 laps on his RC213V. He completed the top three two tenths adrift of Marquez.
By far the most impressive rider this week has been Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Jonas Folger, who put in a headline-grabbing 1m29.042s on his 12th lap of 63 earlier today. The German suffered a small off during the session but still edged LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow by a few hundredths, the British rider once again opting against a time attack and instead focussing on evaluating several things for HRC.
Suzuki’s Alex Rins made big improvements over the week and ends the test sixth fastest on a 1m29.103s, despite a minor tumble. The Spanish rider completed 66 laps today as he put some miles on Suzuki’s concealed ‘winglet’ fairing.
Both factory Ducati riders have struggled this week with mid-corner performance on their Desmosedici GP17s, while Jorge Lorenzo found adapting his riding style tricky at Phillip Island. But both Andrea Dovizioso and Lorenzo were able to make slight improvements in today’s session in seventh and eighth respectively.
Marc VDS Honda’s Jack Miller was a decent ninth having spent the day continuing to evaluate the previous version of the ‘big-bang-style’ engine. Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro completed the top 10 after 65 laps on his RS-GP.
Valentino Rossi was mystifyingly low down on the time sheets at the end of day three. The Italian was 12th fastest and nine tenths away from his team-mate. However, Rossi had been keen to try a race simulation at some point this week and this could well explain the lowly lap time.
KTM made big improvements today. The Austrian marque had a new chassis to test this week on top a few other things, and end Friday’s running just 1.3 seconds off of the pace courtesy of Pol Espargaro’s 1m29.857s in 17th. Bradley Smith was just a few hundredths back in 19th.
Both riders are still finding that the RC16 is lacking in traction, so KTM will have a new engine ready in time for the Qatar test in a few weeks’ time.
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