Tito Rabat smashes Valencia lap record
Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Tito Rabat put in an incredible total of 118 laps on Tuesday, The fastest of those laps was a 1’34.844 effort and put Rabat at the top of the timesheet and set a new outright Moto2 Valencia lap record. Rabat had also topped the timesheet on Monday.
Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) and Jonas Folger (AGR Team) rounded out the fastest three.
Tito Rabat – 1st – 1’34.844 – “We’ve had two really productive days here at Valencia and my feeling with the 2015 Kalex is really good. We have tested a lot of things again today, but I’ve also had to adapt slightly my riding style to get more from the bike, and that’s worked well here too. My pace was good, my rhythm was good and my lap time was good, so I’m happy. Now we head to Almeria, where we will continue working to find further improvements.”
Luis Salom (Paginas Amarillas HP 40) and Xavier Simeon (Federal Oil Gresini Moto2) were also in the top five, with Salom riding a new bike for 2015.
Xavier Simeon – “We have completed these first two days of testing in a very positive way: our lap times have improved and especially my feeling with the bike has increased a lot. There is still work to do, of course: we don’t know yet very well the Kalex and certainly our experience from this point of view is much less compared to Rabat, for example, but nevertheless we were fast and this is encouraging. We continued to work on the bike set-up trying different solutions and we found some that are good, some not; a very successful experience anyway, that we will continue to do in the upcoming Almeria testing session”.
Salom’s new colleague Alex Rins notched up 91 laps of Moto2 experience and ended up eighth overall.
Rabat’s teammate and Moto2 rookie Alex Marquez was 12th quickest. The Moto3 World Champion suffered two crashes without consequences as he pushed to find the limit and finished the day a second behind his flying teammate and good friend Rabat, and one position ahead of Australian veteran Anthony West on the SpeedUp machine.
Alex Marquez -12th – 1’35.964 – “Today we’ve again done some good work, continuing to adapt to the Moto2 bike step by step, which was our goal. The riding style required for Moto2 is very different to that in Moto3. With the small bike you carry a lot of corner speed, but with the Moto2 bike you need to be more aggressive on the brakes, get the bike stopped and then pick it up on the gas. We’re going in the right direction, as can be seen from the fact we’re now only a second from Tito, but the two crashes knocked my confidence a little and building it back up lost us some time. Now we need to continue in the same direction in Almeria, where I hope we can close the gap to Tito even further.”
Rabat and Marquez now have a few days break from riding, before heading to Almeria for the final test of the 2014 season next week.
Michael Bartholemy – Marc VDS Team Principal – “Tito has wasted no time adapting to the 2015 Kalex; basically he just jumped on it and was fast straight away, as we pretty much expected him to be. He was under the outright lap record today despite the track temperature being quite cool, so already we can see that the bike has improved and Tito has figured out how to get the best from the improvements. I’m sure he’ll be looking to break his own lap record at Almeria next week too! Alex’s approach to adapting his riding style to our Moto2 bike has been steady and methodical, which is exactly the right way to do it. He has worked with his crew to understand the bike better and we’ve seen him improve his lap time with every exit, so he’s heading in exactly the right direction. As he gets more kilometres under him his confidence will increase and with confidence comes pace.”
Remy Gardner also took the opportunity to ride the Mahindra Moto3 machine. Remy Gardner, “I had heard that the Mahindra has a very good chassis and I was expecting that but as soon as I finished my first lap I knew the bike was very special. The handling is fantastic, the chassis is really good. It turns amazingly and I can carry much more corner speed than I expected, with no chatter!
“I fit the bike perfectly and I was comfortable and able to push to my maximum level after just two sessions making small suspension changes to suit my riding.
“I was using a practice engine in my bike, which is worth approximately half a second, so with a full power engine I would have been lapping in the 1:39s, which I am very happy about.
“The team are amazing. Very friendly, it is a family style atmosphere and I have very good mechanics and a highly experienced Crew Chief. This team is going to be great to be part of next year. I can’t wait to ride the bike again in 2015”!
Remy will now spend the break training hard in preparation for his first full season in Grand Prix.
“Tomorrow I’m going motard riding, so that is six days riding in a row! I will also be doing a lot of dirt track, motocross, jet skiing, mountain bike riding and wakeboarding over the break to stay fit. I’m excited about my first season in the World Championship, particularly racing at Phillip Island in October”!
Times from European GPone
Moto2
- RABAT, Tito (KALEX) 01: 34.884
- ZARCO, Johann (KALEX) 01: 34.979
- FOLGER, Jonas (KALEX) 01: 35.006
- SALOM, Luis (KALEX) 01: 35.201
- SIMEON, Xavier (KALEX) 01: 35.475
- SCHROTTER, Marcel (Mistral) 01: 35.494
- KALLIO, Mika (KALEX) 01: 35,500
- RINS, Alex (KALEX) 01: 35.546
- MORIBDELLI, Franco (KALEX) 01: 35.655
- PONS, Axel (KALEX) 01: 35.766
- SIMON, Julian (Speed Up) 01: 35.907
- MARQUEZ, Alex (KALEX) 01: 35.964
- WEST, Anthony (Speed Up) 01: 35.965
- NAKAGAMI, Takaaki (KALEX) 01: 36.054
- CARDUS, Ricky (Mistral) 01: 36.283
- PONS, Edgar (KALEX) 01: 36.334
- SYAHRIN, Hafizh (KALEX) 01: 36.341
- WAROKORN, Thitipong (KALEX) 01: 36.892
- SHAH, Azlan (KALEX) 01: 37.135
- KRUMMENACHER, Randy 01: 37.019
- ODENDAAL, Steven (KALEX) 01: 37.498
- RAFFIN, Jesko (KALEX) 01: 37.846
Moto3
- ANTONELLI, Nicholas (Honda) 01: 39.183
- BAGNAIA, Francis (Mahindra) 01: 39.487
- BINDER, Brad (KTM) 01: 39.533
- HANIKA, Karel (KTM) 01: 39.519
- OLIVEIRA, Miguel (KTM) 01: 39.599
- GUEVARA, Juan (Mahindra) 01: 39.718
- AJO, Niklas (KTM) 01: 39.901
- RODRIGO, Gabriel (KTM) 01: 40.043
- DANILO, Jules (Honda) 01: 40.161
- MARTIN, Jorge (Mahindra) 01: 40.191
- CARRASCO, Ana (KTM) 01: 40.702
