The second day on track at the Pertamina Mandalika circuit proved to be tricky as the riders continued their learning curve in Indonesia. For Joan Mir the day was made harder as some team members on his side of the garage received positive lateral flow (rapid antigen) tests and were therefore out of action and isolated pending results of PCR tests. However, both Mir and Alex Rins managed to find their feet with the track and gain useful information ahead of the season start.
With the track in better condition than the previous day, the riders were able to move onto testing some items that were left over from last week’s Sepang test.
Mir lost session time after a small crash. He was hoping to do a long run but felt he wanted to make a few adjustments on the electronics side first. Overall, he was happy and felt things were improving. Mir completed 47 laps and was close to the top time.
Meanwhile, Rins improved his pace with his GSX-RR and felt that he and the team had taken a further step forward. He lost the chance for a flying lap due to a change in conditions but aims to try again on the final day of testing. He totalled 73 laps.
Joan Mir:
“Today was a busy one, some crew members on my side of the team have had to isolate awaiting PCR results, and this made things more difficult not only for me but for them. I also had a crash, which made the job even harder for the remaining team members. These things can happen and we have to adapt. I was struggling a little with the electronics today, so I didn’t really have an opportunity to string lots of laps together. But overall, I’m feeling happy and things are moving in the right direction. We’ll continue to work tomorrow.”
Alex Rins:
“Overall, today was a good day and we made a step forward both with the track and with the bike; it allowed us to be faster and improve our pace around this place. I’m still missing one fast lap; I went for a time attack and then I saw some rain on the screen so I abandoned it – during the test is not the time to take risks. The track was grippier today and we were able to move onto the things that we didn’t manage to test in Sepang, and that was useful.”
Ken Kawauchi - Technical Manager:
“We’ve finished the second day of testing, and both riders were able to test some items left over from Sepang. This was important because we needed to do some comparisons and decide on a few things before the first race. I feel more relaxed today because we feel that we’re ready to start the season, but tomorrow we will use the final day for fine-tuning and final preparations.”
MANDALIKA TEST DAY 2 RESULTS:
1 Luca MARINI ITA Mooney VR46 Racing Team DUCATI 1'31.289
2 Marc MARQUEZ SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'31.481 0.192 0.192
3 Maverick VIÑALES SPA Aprilia Racing APRILIA 1'31.516 0.227 0.035
4 Fabio QUARTARARO FRA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGPYAMAHA 1'31.564 0.275 0.048
5 Joan MIR SPA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR SUZUKI 1'31.586 0.297 0.022
6 Johann ZARCO FRA Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'31.586 0.297
7 Enea BASTIANINI ITA Gresini Racing MotoGP DUCATI 1'31.599 0.310 0.013
8 Pol ESPARGARO SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'31.605 0.316 0.006
9 Jorge MARTIN SPA Pramac Racing DUCATI 1'31.665 0.376 0.060
10 Francesco BAGNAIA ITA Ducati Lenovo Team DUCATI 1'31.725 0.436 0.060
11 Brad BINDER RSA Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'31.814 0.525 0.089
12 Franco MORBIDELLI ITA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGPYAMAHA 1'31.849 0.560 0.035
13 Alex RINS SPA Team SUZUKI ECSTAR SUZUKI 1'31.884 0.595 0.035
14 Aleix ESPARGARO SPA Aprilia Racing APRILIA 1'31.906 0.617 0.022
15 Takaaki NAKAGAMI JPN LCR Honda IDEMITSU HONDA 1'31.918 0.629 0.012
16 Alex MARQUEZ SPA LCR Honda CASTROL HONDA 1'31.980 0.691 0.062
17 Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO ITA Gresini Racing MotoGP DUCATI 1'32.047 0.758 0.067
18 Miguel OLIVEIRA POR Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'32.200 0.911 0.153
19 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP YAMAHA 1'32.303 1.014 0.103
20 Jack MILLER AUS Ducati Lenovo Team DUCATI 1'32.318 1.029 0.015
21 Raul FERNANDEZ SPA Tech3 KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'32.401 1.112 0.083
22 Marco BEZZECCHI ITA Mooney VR46 Racing Team DUCATI 1'32.471 1.182 0.070
23 Remy GARDNER AUS Tech3 KTM Factory Racing KTM 1'32.598 1.309 0.127
24 Darryn BINDER RSA WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP TeamYAMAHA1'33.053 1.764 0.455