This time Valencia didn’t forget its promise, with three days of reasonably good weather for this test, which was accompanied by great expectations all round. After the first day dedicated to the Superstock classes, Supersport and Superbike riders had two days to test all the new material. Many bikes are new this season, and there were a lot of new parts brought here after the two ‘extra-European’ races, designed to improve the bikes ready to face the challenge of the Championship.
This was a FGSport official test, in which Development Teams were testing the new Pirelli tyres but they were not alone in the racetrack, as basically the whole grid came here.
This means that Pirelli brought a lot of different solutions, both for Supersport and for Superbike, and in order to test tyres and bikes the riders were asked to undertake a really a huge job.
In the Supersport class 3 front and 3 rear tyres were present in basically the same numbers as usual – like in a race weekend – which meant that there were more than 2200 tyres, only for this class.
At the end of the four sessions the best time went to Kevin Curtain, and he was able to set a very good 1’37.126. The wind started to blow quite strongly, particularly on day two, and this was annoying the riders making it more difficult to set the best times.
Curtain, during the two days made the incredible amount of 108 laps, which represents 5 races! This is a good way to describe how important these tests were to the teams.
In Superbike the total amount of available solutions was even bigger: 7 rear tyres and 4 front tyres, including a qualifier.
SBK riders from the development teams were asked to test this material in order to give to the Pirelli technicians useful information to develop the tyres - not only for the Valencia race that will be held in here on April the 15th - but also for other rounds during the season.
Four long sessions in SBK gave a lot of answers, also because the riders made a huge amount of laps, concentrating on the race itself and thus making many long runs instead of single laps.
At the end of the sessions the name on top of the list is for Troy Bayliss, preceding Xaus and Lanzi.
Fastest man here in November Max Biaggi finished with the 4th time, but all the riders were more focused on preparing the race than on the single fast lap time, and also the conditions of the track were not allowing to repeat the times of November.
WSBK (Pirelli DIABLO SUPERBIKE, slick 16,5”):Bayliss - Ducati Xerox - 1’34.102
Xaus - Team Sterilgarda - 1’34.565
Lanzi - Ducati Xerox - 1’34.584
Biaggi - Suzuki Alstare - 1’34.708
Corser - Yamaha Motor Italia - 1’34.851
Haga - Yamaha Motor Italia - 1’35.029
Nieto - Kawasaki PSG-1 - 1’35.410
Muggeridge - Alto Evolution Honda - 1’35.470
Neukirchner - Suzuki Germany - 1’35.532
Laconi - Kawasaki PSG-1 - 1’35.639
Race ’06 best lap: 1’35.37
Superpole: 1’34.9
WSS (Pirelli DIABLO SUPERCORSA, 17”):Curtain - Yamaha Motor Germany - 1’37.126
Roccoli - Yamaha Team Italia - 1’37.498
Foret - Kawasaki Gil Motorsport - 1’37.556
Fujiwara - Althea Honda Team - 1’37.590
Parkes - Yamaha Motor Germany - 1’37.635
Race ’06 Best lap: 1’38.664
Pole ’06 1’36.913
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