Red Bull KTM’s Bradley Smith has expressed his satisfaction at the progress the team made with the RC16 over the course of the final three-day test of the pre-season.
The Austrian manufacturer brought a raft of new parts to the Losail International Circuit to try ahead of their full-time debut in the MotoGP World Championship in two weeks.
One such upgrade was a new engine. Phillip Island revealed the RC16’s motor to be a little aggressive under acceleration, and this was causing traction issues.
The new engine was an improvement, but also made certain positive aspects worse, and as a result will not be raced at the season-opener in Qatar.
Aside from the engine, Smith tried various chassis and other parts in a bid to firm up what he’ll use for the first race of the year on March 26.
The Briton completed 157 laps across the three days, improving his lap times by around 2.5s, ending the test 21st and top KTM on a 1m56.351s.
“We were just clarifying the parts and chassis that we’re going to race with, and I’m pleased with the improvements made again today,” said Smith on Sunday evening.
“I think we were able to improve another 2.5s over the three days and the track conditions were a bit better today.”
Not only has he settled on what components he’ll use for the grand prix, it seems he’s also close to knowing which tyre he may focus his time on through practice after some encouraging long runs.
“I found my performance on the medium tyre was better and I think that might be a race option for us,” he confessed.
KTM has spent a lot of time this winter fettling with the electronics, especially to get them to work well with its aggressive engine, and Smith felt the progress made in this area was a major improvement, reckoning that they’ve found a consistent set-up.
“In general, we were working with the mapping and the electronics, and we made some good progress, especially in the electronics.
“We now have something that is a lot more consistent and good over the race distance with all tyres, so everybody did a really good job.”
The British rider, though happy, admits that KTM still have a lot of work to do to close the deficit they have to field if they want to stand any chance of fighting for the points in a couple of weeks’ time.
“Looking at the lap times, we have to find another half a second. We’re close to the two guys in front but then there’s a gap to the next group, and that’s where we want to be if we want to fight for points.”
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