With track conditions improved compared to yesterday and with more laps completed, Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli were able to compare the set-up of their bikes to last week’s during the Sepang test. The result was 4th and 12th time respectively.
The Yamaha duo used the second day of testing in Indonesia to work through a number of different test items and made positive progress: Quartararo was quick to find a good rhythm and by 11:00 local time he had set a 1’31.820s, which put him in second place provisionally. He held the position for the majority of the session until the pace quickened in the final hour. He responded with a 1m31.564s lap, set on 66/68, to end the day in fourth place in the Day 2 and combined results, 0.275s from first.
After a solid first day of testing, Morbidelli was fully motivated to get back to work this morning. He stayed completely focused during an intense session, aiming to further improve his feeling with the bike. It paid off. He posted a solid 1’31.849s on lap 63/64, which put him in 12th place in the Day 2 and combined timesheets, with a margin of 0.560s from the leader.
“Pre-season testing is hard work, but today we had fun – declared the world champion – I’m feeling really happy on used tires, which is something I didn’t expect to be that good. Our pace is really strong! But with the soft tire I’m not feeling so good. The lap time is not so bad, but we need to improve on the time attack. We have one more day of testing tomorrow, and I think we will do a kind of race simulation, a short one. I won’t do 27 laps but I think something between 16 and 20 laps. We will see our real pace and I think it is very fast. But we’ll see. I am very happy with my pace and I think what I’m missing in qualifying is that the difference between the used tire and the new one is much less than before. It’s strange and I don’t understand why the difference is so small. We know the race pace is there, so I want to focus more on time attacks. But overall, I feel happy enough. The Ducatis are so almost? What can I say? It’s not my problem, I have to try to be as fast as possible with the Yamaha. My mentality is always the same: if the bike isn’t fast enough, I’m not an engineer, I don’t know what to do with it, but I’ll fight to the limit. To be honest, however, we have not taken the step forward that I expected. Our standard is 9 km/h difference in top speed. We haven’t made progress but I don’t have to think about it, I just have to think about my riding. But we know the race pace is there, so I want to focus more on the time attacks. But overall, I feel quite happy.”
Morbidelli: “I did my first time attack of the year.”
“We are improving step by step – said Morbidelli – Today I had the chance to do my first time attack of the year. I definitely felt some rust, but it’s good to do it and see even clearer where the bike needs to improve. During a time attack the problems are magnified. It was definitely a good day, we improved again, and then we did a time attack, like I said, to know where we still need to improve. There are some changes that we can make to improve the feeling, which is not bad at the moment, but it’s also not great. You need to have a great feeling with the bike in this category to be at the front. That’s what we will try to do. Luca Marini’s time was really fantastic. A tenth and a half advantage in MotoGP is a big margin. The current Yamaha engine is certainly better than the 2019 one, but it hasn’t improved much since. “