Yamaha pair pleased with Phillip Island test
Added on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Yamaha pair pleased with Phillip Island test
Yamaha World Superbike rider’s Eugene Laverty and Marco Melandri enjoyed a productive test at Phillip Island this week, with Laverty posting the fastest time of the three-day test in Australia.
With Aprilia riders Marco Melandri and Leon Camier also present in at Phillip Island, the test gave Yamaha the perfect opportunity to benchmark themselves against last year’s championship winning bike and the Laverty didn’t disappoint, posting an unofficial time of 1:31.5.
Both riders, new signing for 2011, spent the three days testing out various parts including new Ohlins (TRVP25) front forks on both the 2010 and 2011 race bike and a large part of the test for both riders, particularly Melandri, included ongoing physical modifications to the YZF-R1 racebike to fit their riding style, adjusting foot pegs, handlebars and other geometry settings.
Northern Irishman Laverty was clearly enjoying his third outing on the R1, having been impressively quick in the first two tests, he was again fast from the off, finishing the week over half a second faster than closest rider Max Biaggi. He also spent some time on race simulation, putting in consistently fast race pace laps.
“I’m pretty pleased with the test, it’s a nice way to go into the winter break,” said the former World Supersport rider. “In the three days we got a lot of laps done, the second day especially was big breakthrough. So far we’ve had two one day tests so the second day here was where we really made the bike mine. The race times on the 2011 machine weren’t so far away from 2010 bike so we’re developing in the right direction. The new Ohlins front fork is definitely an improvement. I’m still learning this bike so we are fine tuning it as we go.”
