Riders reflect on Phillip Island WorldSBK Test

WorldSBK 2023

Phillip Island pre-season Test

Rider Quotes

Alvaro Bautista – P1

“I’m happy because the feeling with the bike was immediately good. We worked a lot on the set-up and on the tires that we will use this weekend. We are ready to start the new season. I think this has been the best pre-season in my career. The sensations are definitely positive and I can’t wait to get back on track on Friday for the first free practice”.

Andrea Locatelli – P2

“The feeling from yesterday was really good and I enjoyed this test! I enjoy riding on this track, it’s a bit special for me! When we finish the day, we go in the house and it is feeling like home, but also Phillip Island is just a really nice track – when you are riding you see the ocean and it’s something different. I’m really happy about these two days because we were really fast from the first day, and I think we were fast in every session – so this is a good point. The feeling with the bike was amazing in all the sessions. Now we need to look forward for the race weekend. To be honest, I think we are close to being ready and we have a really good package, so we need to trust and to believe! In general, I have more confidence with the bike, we work very well during the winter tests and also here in Phillip Island, so I think we are ready to fight.”

Michael Rinaldi – P3

“I am satisfied with what we have done in these two months. Jerez and Portimao tests went well and the objective for these two days at Phillip Island was to confirm those positive feelings. Especially today we did a good job ahead of the weekend’s races and I feel ready to start the championship.”

Toprak Razgatlıoğlu – P4

“We tried many parts and different set-up on the two days, looking for best rear grip and race set up. In the end I am not so happy today, we did not find the best solution, so maybe we go back to yesterday setting – you know, my best lap time. Now my team are working for the weekend. I am just focused on set-up, not fast lap, I just focus this and trying the new parts – not push a lot. It can be easy to try too many parts or set-up and be lost, but now we are coming back again and it’s time to race. On Friday, everybody start pushing for the new season – always we try best position, maybe in the race we are big fighting again but we will see – I will try my best!”

Jonathan Rea – P5

“Today we tried a 2022 spec bike versus the 2023 spec bike in the afternoon session. There are positives and negatives with both but I preferred to stick with the 2023 bike. Unfortunately, doing a race simulation, on about lap 14, I got caught out in Turn Four. The wind was very gusty and it is coming in strongly from the sea, and I was pushing at my limit – clearly. I had very positive sensations during that long run and I was able to stay in the 1’31 laps times. That pace is where I need to be to fight for the podium. After that we tried the SC0 rear tyre because Pirelli asked me to do a longer run to evaluate how it would perform in the Superpole race. Our tyre performance was good and from an electronics point of view I am really happy with the steps we have made inside the team. I am more satisfied with the bike than yesterday. Clearly there is potential with the new bike and we have to keep working to extract that potential. We have made a step compared to last year, I feel. For race weekend, I feel we can fight for the podium.”

Dominique Aegerter – P6

“The adaption keeps going on; we’re happy with this last test before the beginning of the season. We did one strong lap, and I’m happy with the one I did, even though we know we’re still missing something on our race pace. Anyway, we have good data to work on, all the people in my team did a great job, and we’re ready to start, so I cannot wait for Saturday and Sunday to come.”

Iker Lecuona – P8

“We end this two-day test with mixed feelings because we closed P8 but didn’t really understand why we couldn’t be faster. I felt good on the bike and felt it had good balance, but the reality is that we dropped tenths here and there and especially on new tyres. On used tyres we took a big step compared to last year because I now feel good on them and can ride consistently – this is important as we’ve resolved something that was critical for me and my riding style and that was causing me to struggle in the second part of the races. So we’ve made a step there, and that has us feeling that there is still more we can do with the bike setup, but our expectation were much higher going into this test to be honest, particularly here at a track I adore. We now have two days in which to analyse the electronics and data to understand what’s happening with the bike and decide how to approach the first race.”

Remy Gardner – P9

“We’re satisfied with the progress we made. I enjoyed myself at Phillip Island. Even though we didn’t try to do a flying lap, our race pace was not too bad, and the feeling was okay. I cannot wait to begin the Championship; we’ll keep working during these days to progress further; we have good data available to us, so there’s still margin for improvement.”

Michael van der Mark – P12

“It was nice to have another two days of testing. We had a solid plan, tried a lot of things, mainly with the electronics but also with the suspension. We did not change the bike completely but it was just small things we wanted to try and re-confirm. It has been good days of testing but as always in testing you want more time, but I think we can be quite happy. We had no problems so I am starting the weekend quite confident. At the first two rounds, we for sure need to be in the top ten. It seems that the midfield in WorldSBK is really tight now and I think we can expect some really good battles but we improved the bike a lot over the winter, step by step. Maybe not in the single-lap pace but over race distance and feeling for us. So I am looking forward to start the season. To be racing at Phillip Island and in Indonesia is amazing, two really good but completely different tracks. For me, the winter has been long enough and I can’t wait to start racing.”

Garrett Gerloff – P13

“It has been the final test before 2023 officially starts. It was a good three out of four sessions. I feel like we made a lot of progress and we have a lot of information from the last two days. Only in the final session, we had some issues. In general, I think we know what we need to do for the weekend coming up. The bike feels good and I know that we can make more progress. There were more positives than negatives and that’s all that matters. At the first two rounds, I just want to have everything working well and I think at this point being in the top ten would be a really good result. I either want to be close to the best BMW or the best BMW. I think that’s the main goal. Overall, I want to be in the top ten for sure, and hopefully we can prepare the bike for these first two rounds in a way that we can make it happen.”

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Scott Redding – P14

“At the test, we have worked on getting some more feeling with the bike and as the track started to have more grip I started to feel better. We tried a few things to help with the rear grip again and we worked on electronics to get me more feeling in that area of the bike. We still have some work to do. Now we start the season with a double-header. I am not feeling super confident yet but it is coming slowly the more I ride the bike. The field is super close at the moment. When you look at the lap times, it is super close with everybody. So it will be difficult to say what the targets for the first two rounds are and the race is obviously different to testing. I would be happy to get some top-six finishes in the first races. Overall, we just need to play it by ear and see where we are after the first race to improve on that.”

Alex Lowes – P15

I feel like we are struggling a bit. The updates we had in the winter don’t seem to be working as well here. We made some positive steps in the last session today, but we have some work to do. What we found in Europe, in cooler test conditions, has not been the same here. I did not do a time attack but the position on the timesheets is still a lot lower than I would want it to be. I just used race tyres but we still have work to do. We raced here at the end of last year and right now I don’t feel as comfortable as I did then. I was faster in the morning than the afternoon, when it was a bit gripper, and I have been wary to not make too many mistakes. We saw a lot of crashes in WorldSBK and WorldSSP. So I just wanted to keep my powder dry in some ways, but I have not been ‘sandbagging’ and then feel like I am going to win the race. That said I was 15th in testing in 2020 and then went on to win a race, so that might be a good sign!”

Loris Baz – P16

“We were struggling a little bit throughout these two days, but had a good session on Monday morning, where I felt good straight away. After that we couldn’t really improve and had some problems with the bike. Luckily, it was a test. I would rather have these issues on Monday and Tuesday than Friday to Sunday. I want to say a huge thank you to all the guys, because it was two very long days for them now. They put in a lot of effort, we all did. We just have to continue like this. It is difficult to say what I expect from the first two rounds. If I manage to reach the team’s target, the top ten, in these two first rounds, I will be happy.”

Xavi Vierge – P17

“Firstly, I want to say sorry and a huge thank you to the team because I had two crashes which meant the guys had to work so hard to make the repairs. They did an amazing job, as always, and provided me with a perfect bike for the final afternoon session. And, luckily, I suffered no physical consequences at all. The less positive aspect is that we struggled a lot more than expected, despite improving a little overall. Generally speaking, we’ve improved in terms of our race pace during the pre-season but are not yet able to exploit the fresh tyres. Nevertheless, we start the season fully fit and ready to give it our all – we will keep working hard just as we are used to doing.”

Hafizh Syahrin – P21

“These two days have been very useful for us, as this was basically our only full pre-season test for which we had time to prepare. So we took time to get back up to speed with everything and understand the new bike, which has quite a different character compared to last season. I also have a new crew chief and he works in a slightly different way, so it’s been good to get to know each other better. A big thanks to my team as they’ve been working so hard on very little sleep since getting here. I tried to do my best throughout the sessions, and I hope that we can make pick up the pace and make better inroads during the first race weekend.”

Eric Granado – P22

“The test’s been positive in that this was the first time we were able to use the full day and complete many laps. We’re still far from where we can be of course, but right now we need to focus on better understanding the bike and particularly the electronics, which are new to me. I’m still looking for the right confidence with the throttle and power delivery, but we’ve clocked up some miles and have improved little by little. The target for this test was of course to prepare for the first rounds rather than attempting a time attack or anything, and so that’s what we did. Unfortunately, I suffered a crash yesterday and so was riding with painful feet today but luckily nothing is broken and I’ll be ready for the weekend. It’s going to be a challenging first round for me, with three races and windy conditions, but I’m confident that we’ll be able to make progress and find a good setup for the races.”

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