One week after the Valencia test days which saw Joan Mir make his Team SUZUKI ECSTAR debut, the paddock headed swiftly on to Jerez de la Frontera for another two-day test.

Both GSX-RR riders had a useful and positive day under the Spanish sunshine, although a couple of hours were lost in the morning due to cold and damp track conditions. Alex Rins was able to try the new 2019 chassis and engine spec, which was particularly useful in the team’s quest for finalising base settings for next season. Alex closed the day in 13th place and completed a whopping 87 laps.

Joan Mir suffered a heavy crash at Turn 7 which brought out the red flag. Thankfully, after a trip to the medical centre, the young rookie was not found to have any serious injuries. The Mallorcan didn’t let the scare hold him back and he continued to push for fast laps. In fact, his 52nd and final lap was his fastest, and he closed the session less than a second from the leader.

Test Rider Sylvain Guintoli is also present at Jerez and he was able to try some different parts to the two main factory riders, therefore gleaning further information.

The riders will be back on track tomorrow (Thursday) for a second day of testing.

Davide Brivio - Team Manager

“Today was a good day, despite Joan’s crash. Fortunately he was OK and able to test again in the afternoon. He set some very good lap times and he tried a few different parts, he did a good job after the crash. Alex had a tricky day with a lot of hard work on testing; back-to-back comparisons with chassis in order to get as much information as possible. So we feel good about today and everything is on schedule. We’re looking forward to working again tomorrow.”

Joan Mir

Joan Mir

“The important thing is that I’m feeling good. I have some bumps and bruises but nothing worse, despite it being a hard crash. After the crash I was able to get my good feeling back straight away and recover my lap times, and I continued to put in laps until the end of the day. I set a time in the 1:38 bracket and I’m very satisfied with that for the first day. I also worked a bit on the electronics and a few new parts. We’re happy with what we’ve achieved today and how it’s all been going, and we hope tomorrow will also be good.”

Alex Rins

“I tried the 2019 chassis today and I’m quite happy. The new chassis has some positives and some negatives at the moment, but we’ve only just started to test it so there’s plenty of time to make more comparisons and improvements. I also had the new engine to try, the one I already had in Valencia last week. I feel that the new spec. engine has more power than the old one. We’ve improved it since Valencia, because there it felt a bit aggressive, but now the power delivery has been made smoother thanks to the electronics. So now I feel really good with this engine, but we’ll continue working on it to get the perfect feeling. We got a lot done today and we’re happy.”