Ducati Marlboro has concluded the first pre-season MotoGP test of 2006, at Sepang in Malaysia, with a repeat of its day two domination over the Japanese manufacturers after Sete Gibernau and Loris Capirossi set the final day pace on both qualifying and race tyres. Almost all of the expected 2006 grid, with the exception of Konica Minolta Honda, WCM and the rumoured second Tech 3 Yamaha being lined up for Carlos Checa were present at Sepang this week, for the second Sepang test since the end of the 2005 season, with world champion Valentino Rossi putting his new Camel liveried Yamaha at the top of the day one times.
Meanwhile, Capirossi and Gibernau were just fifth and seventh fastest on Monday, but shot to the top on a rain shortened day two, Gibernau lapping 0.17secs ahead of his team-mate after setting a new unofficial lap record. The Catalan then improved on his test best by a further 0.63secs with qualifying tyres today, after delivering a stunning 2mins 1.03secs circulation. "My settling-in period with the team the bike and the tyres is continuing" said Gibernau, "and I am increasingly satisfied with the choice that I have made. Today I felt pretty good on the GP6 and I also wanted to do a few laps on the GP5, which I have never tried, to make a back-to-back test."
This also confirmed what Loris, who knows the bike well, had said yesterday. "The GP5 is a good bike but, the GP6 has more development potential and from now onwards we are only going to use that bike. For the first time I used Bridgestone's qualifying tyres and they gave me a good feeling. We've still got a lot of work to do to be at 100% but we are on the right path," he added. But Capirossi also upped his pace and, although left just 0.05secs behind his new team-mate on qualifying rubber, the Italian was the fastest of all on race tyres setting a 2mins 1.64secs compared with a 2mins 1.83secs for Gibernau.
"We can also be satisfied with today's performance," began Capirossi. "The weather was good all day and we were able to do all the scheduled tyre testing. Bridgestone are working well and we have gathered a lot of useful information for the next test session here at Sepang. I also tried the new qualifying tyres, which have a good potential. I like the GP6 more and more and I can't wait to test it in Australia, where last year I only did a few laps on the Friday morning before crashing, which forced me to miss the Australian and Turkish GPs," he concluded.
For comparison, Capirossi set pole position at last September's Malaysian Grand Prix with a lap of 2mins 1.731secs, while the fastest race lap during the GP was a 2min 2.993secs recorded by Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden. Behind the Ducati duo, Marco Melandri kept Honda in touch by claiming third, a mere 0.04secs from Capirossi's qualifying tyre pace, with class rookie Dani Pedrosa a further four-tenths back - enough to place the reigning 250cc world champion in front of top Yamaha rider Rossi (+0.57secs from Gibernau) and Repsol Honda team-mate Hayden (+0.66secs).
The next MotoGP pre-season test will take place at the challenging Phillip Island circuit in Australia, from 31st January to 2nd February, where Ducati will aim to prove that their Bridgestone shod GP6 can transfer its proven Sepang pace to another circuit. Honda, Kawasaki and Ducati will all make the trip down under, while Yamaha and Suzuki will instead test at Qatar from 6th rto 8th of February.
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