Team Drive M7 Aspar's Hayden & Aoyama Work on Chassis Set-Up During MotoGP Sepang Test 2 Day 2

27/02/14. MOTOGP TEST SEPANG

DRIVE M7 ASPAR RIDER CONTINUE PRESEASON PROGRAMME AT SEPANG

Nicky Hayden and Hiroshi Aoyama again focus work on chassis set-up on second day in Malaysia 

Whether it is due to the strange track conditions, or as several riders suggested yesterday, the new tyres that Bridgestone have brought to Malaysia, the pace at the second preseason MotoGP test at Sepang remains some way off that at the first. Two weeks ago several riders lapped inside the two minute mark but today's fastest time was set by Dani Pedrosa with a lap of 2'00.039.

The DRIVE M7 Aspar Team was one of the busiest on track, with Hiroshi Aoyama clocking up 72 laps - more than any other rider today. Like yesterday both Aoyama and his team-mate Nicky Hayden produced their best lap times at the end of the day, having worked principally on improving the chassis and suspension set-up of their respective Honda machines. 

14th Nicky Hayden 2'02.088 (59 laps): "The track is still pretty dirty but the conditions today were slightly better than yesterday, when it was particularly slippery - especially in turn one. It was still really hot but we were able to get plenty of work done, mainly on the suspension and general set-up. We also worked a bit on the gearbox although at the moment there is not much for us to try in this area and it is quite time consuming work. The feeling today was pretty good, we improved the lap times and hopefully we can continue to do that tomorrow through a combination of improving the bike and also my riding. We have a couple of things still to try tomorrow as part of a long run."

18th Hiroshi Aoyama 2'02.786 (72 laps): "We continued adjusting the suspension today and managed to improve the feeling quite a lot. This wasn't really reflected in the lap time but we are satisfied with the work we did today. The track conditions were still quite bad but we managed to get a lot of work done and now we have a lot of data to go through and see where we can improve. Maybe we are losing too much time in the fast corners because I don't have the confidence to get on the gas so tomorrow we will need to try and put that right. At the moment though we are concentrating on getting the bike turning better so we can pick up the corner speed."