Yamaha’s reflection from the Sepang Test

Test MotoGP Sepang 2023
Yamaha

While the two Monster Energy Yamaha riders had some backup support from test racers Cal Crutchlow and Katsuyuki Nakasuga, much of the workload at Sepang fell on Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli.

While the top speed potential with the new engine is promising, the Quartararo finished the test with the P17 and Morbidelli P20 somewhat disappointingly.

Massimo Meregalli – Monster Yamaha Team Manager

“This test is very important to us. We’ve had a lot of items to review over the past three days. It was a pity that the rain interrupted our run during the Sepang test run. We worked as hard as we could and collected a significant amount of data, but it’s not easy to evaluate all of those items in a really short time. Fortunately, we can decide on the most important items that we need to evaluate in this test. As for other items, such as some parts of the aerodynamic package and chassis, we can’t decide on them here and we’ll have to try again in Portimão. We are pleased with the improvement we have achieved in terms of top speed. But unfortunately, we were not able to complete the whole test plan. The list of items to be checked was too long and the dry monitoring time was so short that we could not complete the job completely. We will now review all the data that we cannot analyze here in preparation for the final and very important test in Portimão in March.“

Quartararo showed his typical determination and dedication on Sunday with 63 laps, the most of any driver, as he tried to gather data for engineers to analyze before the trip. next play at Portimao.

Fabio Quartararo – P17

“I am very pleased with the top speed. This is what I asked for a long time ago. We have a lot to try and I’m happy for that too, because we asked for this too. Overall, the speed of the used tires is good, I am extremely happy, but we need to improve the driving with the new tyres. Today, the feeling is not great in time attack. We will look at all the data and then think about how to ‘reset’ the Portimão. Let’s see if we can make a big step.”

Similar to his teammate, Morbidelli took advantage of his last day in Malaysia to try to complete his test program as much as possible to help Yamaha engineers better understand the updated items. .

Franco Morbidelli – P20

“So in the end we ran through the aero options. We really need to do that and we’ve found some cool stuff we’ll need to confirm in Portimão. We already support a few other things that we need to check in a row. Finally, we also do a timing attack, but that’s not very good. So we need to dig deeper into that aspect. We will do it and prepare better in Portimão.”

Now, the team will return to Europe while Yamaha engineers in Japan process the test data. The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team will regroup in Portugal from March 11-12 for the Portimão MotoGP Official Test.

MotoGP Sepang Test Combined Time

MotoGP Sepang Best Tri-Speed ​​Test Day