Team Drive M7 Aspar's Hayden & Aoyama Work on Race Simulation & Set-Up During Day 2 MotoGP Bridgestone Tire Testing in Qatar

08/03/14. MOTOGP TEST QATAR

DRIVE M7 ASPAR TEAM CONTINUE PRESEASON PREPARATIONS IN QATAR

Nicky Hayden completes satisfactory race simulation as Hiroshi Aoyama finds set-up improvements

The Losail International Circuit in Doha was lit up again tonight as a host of MotoGP teams continued to put the finishing touches to their preseason preparations. With just two weeks remaining before the start of the new season at the same venue, the track was a hive of activity as the riders found improved grips and conditions compared to last night. Alvaro Bautista was the fastest man of the night, although after only two riders managed to break into the 1'55s last night, five riders made that benchmark tonight. 

The DRIVE M7 Aspar Team continued working intensely to close the gap to the top before the start of the season, with both Nicky Hayden and Hiroshi Aoyama taking considerable chunks off their best lap times from last night. The American found six tenths as he also completed a race simulation in the low 1'57s, whilst the Japanese worked on the weight distribution of his bike and improved his lap time by nine tenths.    

9th Nicky Hayden 1.56.923 (63 laps): “Today we worked on improving our consistency. We had done a few long runs but not full race distance so we did a simulation and the bike and tyres worked well. Obviously we'd like to be quicker but our pace was decent and consistent from the first lap to the last. Hopefully we can improve our speed tomorrow. We have worked with the hard rear tyre and set some pretty good lap times with it. We are still in ninth place so we clearly have plenty of room to improve and we'll be working hard on that tomorrow." 

11th Hiroshi Aoyama 1.57.281 (55 laps): “Yesterday we struggled for feel in corner exit so today the main objective was to get the bike turning better and after trying a bunch of different settings we found some improvements at the end of the evening. We still need to improve more in this area but all the data we gathered tonight will be useful as we continue to learn more about this bike and how best to set it up for this track, which is important especially considering that the first race of the season is here in two weeks. We'll keep working along the same lines tomorrow."